Bioshock Infinite: Hell in Heaven
by The Incredible Muffin
Summary: My take on Infinite. Booker is an 18-year-old in the year 2013 who finds himself trapped on Columbia. The only way for him to get back home is to help a girl he's never met, while fighting not only the insane residents of the floating city, but his own personal demons as well. Rated M for Language, Violence and Innuendos.
1. Chapter 1

**BIOSHOCK INFINITE IS NOT OWNED BY ME. HOWEVER, I DON'T THINK THAT ANYONE WOULD MIND IF I NAMED A FLOATING CITY IN THE SKY "COLUMBIA". MOSTLY BECAUSE IF YOU HAVE A FLOATING CITY IN THE SKY, PEOPLE DON'T MESS WITH YOU.**

**Hello, everyone, and welcome to the world of Bioshock Infinite, where racism runs rampant, people have superpowers and yet nobody seems able to kill one aging Pinkerton agent. **

**Here is my take on the story: Booker DeWitt is an 18-year-old living in the modern era of 2013. He finds himself trapped in the city of Columbia, with only one way out. He must rescue a girl named Elizabeth, and only with her help can he discover the secrets of, and then escape, this hell in the sky.**

**Note: Booker and Elizabeth are NOT related.**

Bioshock Infinite

Hell in Heaven

Chapter 1

The Floatation Devices! They Do Nothing!

People have told me that when things seem to be going right, everything is about to go wrong. I personally think that that's a load of crap; or I did, until my life went to hell. How did my life, the life of the awesome, cool and good-looking Booker DeWitt, go to hell, you ask? Well, shut up and let me tell you, geez.

I was on my way to back to the good ol' US of A, when the strangest thing happened; and by strange, I mean an event that caused many people on board the plane with me to crap their pants. Either that, or it was the in-flight meal. Anyway, I looked out the window to see a city. Now, this would be alarming in any situation, seeing as how we were flying below buildings at cruising speed, and that meant that we were probably going to die anyway; no, the really scary thing was that we were flying below the buildings _while over the Atlantic Ocean_. And that the city was flying right alongside us.

Now, I've seen weird stuff; I mean, I've seen "Lost in Space". That was one weird-ass movie. But a flying city? That's just awe-inspiring and terrifying at the same time. I would have probably stared at that impossibility of science for a long time, had I not noticed some very large cannons turn in our direction. For some reason, the only thing I could think to do was pull out that pamphlet that has all of the safety directions on it.

Then I heard a loud boom, and then everything went black.

…

"Ow," was the first thing that came out of my mouth as I came to. I slowly opened up my eyes. I was lying on a rather uncomfortable piece of… something. I looked down to see that the something was actually a piece of the plane.

The memories came rushing back to me: the flying city, the cannons and… actually, that's all that happened. Huh. Not much of a flashback; what a rip-off. I stood up, shakily at first, then brushed myself off. Remarkably, I was unharmed, which was weird; you'd think getting blown up and crashing onto a very hard island, albeit a floating one, would have given me a scratch or something.

I looked around, trying to gauge my surroundings. It was like stepping back in time; everything around me looked… old. Not archaeology-level old, but definitely before my time. I took a few steps forward; I was in some sort of park. It was kind of nice, actually; there was a fountain, lots of flowers, big statues proclaiming the divinity of the Founding Fathers…

Wait, what?

Walking over to them, I could see that the plaques on the statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin that said that each one was practically a god.

That's… weird. Don't get me wrong, I'm a patriotic guy, but I don't think that George Washington is God. Call me crazy, but I was beginning to think that something might be wrong with this place.

As I backed up from the statues, my foot caught on something and I fell backwards. Thankfully, no one else was around to see my rather graceless fall. Cursing under my breath, I noticed that I had tripped over a box, which was next to a large paper bag. I blinked. Where had that stuff come from? Curiosity getting the better of me, I took a closer look at the box. Carved in intricate script was my name.

And here I was thinking that shit couldn't get weirder. I opened the box to find a letter, a couple of photographs and some money. Deciding to see if the letter had any useful information, I looked at that first.

_Dear Mr. DeWitt,_

_You have reached the city of Columbia. It will seem strange to you, but do not fear. Do what comes naturally and you will be fine. Or you will be dead. That possibility is just as likely. The clothes in the bag will help you blend in. Find the girl, help her, and you will get home. Or you won't. Welcome to 1912._

_Sincerely,_

_R & R Lutece_

…

What the hell? How do these people know me? Why is the only way for me to get home to help some girl? More importantly, what did they mean by "Welcome to 1912"? I looked back in the box and pulled out the photographs. One showed an ornate tower. Maybe that's where the girl was.

The other photo showed the girl in question. She looked about my age, and she looked cute, but other than that, and the fact that the name "Elizabeth" was scribbled on it, I knew nothing about this girl. Well, I suppose that the upside was that she was easy on the eyes.

I opened the bag of clothes to find a pair of brown pants, black shoes and socks, a beige button-up shirt and a brown jacket. Someone really liked earth-tones. I noticed that the clothes were sturdy, probably made for work and not fashion, though the clothes did look good, in a retro sort of way.

Looking around to make sure that I was alone, I quickly changed. I decided that if people were crazy enough to flat-out _worship _George Washington, it might be in my best interest to trust R & R Lutece, whoever they were, and not stick out like a sore thumb.

…

Luckily, the clothes not only fit, they were comfortable; I'm big on comfort. I could dress like the Joker, purple suit and all, if it was comfortable. Anyway, as I was deciding what to do with my old clothes, I realized that my phone was missing. Well, crap, I could've used that to call for help or something; it was a satellite-phone, after all. It must've fallen out of my pocket as I fell out of the plane.

I pocketed the money and the photographs and headed towards the buildings in the distance. It occurred to me that maybe I should feel something about the other hundred-plus people who had probably died when the plane blew up, and I probably did, in the back of my mind. Right now, however, I was more concerned with my own, still endangered, life.

As I walked down the cobblestone road, I saw the first human beings since getting blown up; they had similar clothes to mine, but seemed a little more, I don't know, formal. Trying my best not to make eye contact, I scanned the area, hoping to see the tower. I did, but it was pretty far away.

Hooray, I love walking.

I strode by a hot-dog vendor, who offered me a free dog, as a treat for it being a festival day, or something. I took it, seeing as how I hadn't eaten in God knows how long. As I ate, I noticed another strange aspect of this place; the horses weren't real. They were machines. That… was different. I mean, if we had mechanical horses in 1912, I think I would have remembered that in history class.

I kept walking, even while staring at the mecha-horse. If a police officer hadn't stopped me, I might have walked off the edge of the "island".

"Whoa, there, friend," he said, "you should be more careful."

"Uh, sorry," I replied. Then a thought came to mind. "Excuse me officer, I didn't sleep much last night and my memory's a little fuzzy; could you tell me the best way to get over there?" I pointed in the general direction of the tower.

The officer frowned, and for a moment I was worried that I'd done something to stand out.

"You'd have to pass through the fair, but I think it might be closed off now; everyone already got their entry ticket, you see."

I nodded in understanding, but inside, I was seething. Well, shit, how was I supposed to get to the tower and off of this crazy-train?

The cop wasn't done talking. "You might be able to get into part of the fair, but the only way to get all the way through is to pass the raffle area, and I _know _that that part is closed off."

I sighed; it was better than nothing. I decided to wait where I was for now. There wasn't any other way to cross to the "island" in front of me without the bridge extending, and I had to wait for what looked like a convoy of floating boxcars with signs attached to them. They had speakers that spouted religious gibberish, something about a "Lamb" and a "False Shepherd", but I didn't pay attention.

When it passed, the bridge extended and I crossed it as quickly, but casually, as I could. I really didn't want to look down, seeing as if I fell, it would be game over. Instead, I looked up. It was actually kind of cool to see the giant balloons under the various buildings and "islands", and seeing them move up and down ever-so-slightly.

I kept going in the direction of the fair, stopping every so often when I saw money on the ground; apparently the money here was known as "silver eagles" instead of dollars. Every time I pocketed a coin or a bill, I wondered at the carelessness of people; how could they be so loose with their money? I myself didn't have to worry about money, thanks to my inheritance, but I wasn't stupid; I knew not to waste anything. Oh well, more money for me, right?

For a little while, I got lost in the pleasantness of the area; the people greeted me with honest smiles, which I returned. Too bad my good vibes ended when I saw the sign in front of me. It showed a shadowy hand, with a red, x-shaped scar on the back, and warning people that the mark was the sign of the False Shepherd.

I looked at the back of my own right hand, and saw the same x-shaped scar. Okay, that can't be good. I shoved my right hand into my pocket and kept moving, going back to my "don't make eye contact" mentality.

"Mr. DeWitt!" I jumped when I heard someone shout my name. I whirled around to see a young boy behind me. He held out a letter. "Telegram for you, sir!"

"Uh, thanks." I said, making sure to take the telegram with my left hand. The boy saluted and ran off. I read the telegram.

_DeWitt STOP_

_Do not alert Comstock to your presence STOP_

_Whatever you do, do not pick #77 STOP_

_Lutece_

"Who the hell is Comstock?" I murmured. Then I remembered; in my meandering through the city so far, I had overheard conversations that praised this Comstock guy as some sort of prophet. In my mind, the only thing more dangerous than a zealot was a zealot's leader.

…

Deciding to err on the side of caution, well, more so than I was already, I kept moving until I got to the fair. It was pretty neat, actually. It had games, attractions and plenty of free food. Why can't fairs back home have more free food?

There were a few things that stood out; like the weird guys in jester outfits that could somehow create tornadoes to levitate people, or shoot fire out of their hands. Did that meant that it was a bad idea to laugh at these jesters? There was also a display for a "Handyman", which looked kind of like an old guy if you gave him a massive mechanical body with seriously oversized hands.

Every time I think that this city couldn't get weirder…

I headed towards the closed-off area, hoping there was a way for me to sneak inside; sadly, there was none. The only way in was through a strange robot/vending machine that wouldn't let me through. While pondering my latest problem, I heard a voice getting my attention.

"Excuse me, sir!" I turned to see a young woman holding a basket of green bottles. "Have you ever lost a penny to a vending machine?" Quarters, maybe; I've yet to find a vending machine that only cost a penny.

"Has a phone ever not connected you to a beloved spouse?" I wouldn't know, I'm not married.

"Well, it's time to take back control from the men of metal!" Right on, power to the people and all that shit.

Deciding to interrupt her shpiel, I asked, "So, what exactly are you selling?"

She smiled at me. "I'm selling the Possession Vigor, sweetie; if you drink it, you'll know how to use it."

_What the hell? _I figured. "All right, sweetheart, how much for one of those?" I gave her my best smile, which I've been told is quite dazzling.

If anything, her smile grew even bigger when I called her sweetheart. "Normally, I'd charge you; but I just can't bear to separate a man that charming and handsome from his money. This one's on the house."

Wow. That actually worked? I almost felt bad about basically stealing from her; keyword, "almost".

"Thanks," I said, smiling again. I think she swooned.

She handed me a bottle, which I examined; it had a picture of a heart being run through with a sword. That's pleasant. The top was carved to look like a woman swooning on her back, with a stylized heart coming out of her chest.

Popping off the heart, I drank the green liquid. It tasted like a cross between mint and cola, and had a chalky aftertaste. It really wasn't the best drink I ever had. Then everything got blurry; I stumbled for a moment, before looking at the vendor, who was tracing a green heart in the air. Her fingers actually left a green outline as she moved them. Now, I've never done drugs, but this was one serious trip.

The woman leaned close to me. "With just a whisper," she said in a sultry tone, "they're all ears." Then she gave me a deep kiss.

When… whatever-that-was ended and everything lost the green tint, the woman gave me a seductive wink, then walked off, putting an extra sway in her hips.

Okay…

Shaking off the fact that I might have been taken advantage of, I turned to the robot. Instinctively, I held out my left hand, and was surprised to see a green flicker surround the fingers. Again, on instinct, I threw my hand forward; a green ghost-like shape headed towards and then _into _the robot. I was so surprised that I almost missed the thing opening the gate for me.

So I could control machines now. Cool.

As I sauntered on through, I was met by a man and a woman; both wore beige and brown clothes and had red hair. In fact, they looked like they could be brother and sister, even twins.

Wait… earth-tone clothes, possibly twins… and twins often share the same letter in their first names…

"Lutece?" I asked. Man, this was gonna be awkward if I was wrong.

The woman smiled. "Indeed, Mr. DeWitt; I am Rosalind and this is my brother, Robert." She turned to her brother. "I told you he'd guess right."

Damn, I am good.

"So you did." Said Robert; he seemed disappointed. Had they been betting on me figuring out who they were or something?

"So, why the gifts and the job?" I asked casually, "Not that I'm complaining about the former."

Robert spoke up. "If it gets you what you want, do you really care?"

I raised an eyebrow. I'm not some video game character who just does whatever the other guy tells them too; I'm a curious guy.

"I care if you're trying to play me for a sap," I said, "and if you are, I'll find my own way home."

Now Robert turned to his sister, a smug smile on his lips. "See? I told you he wouldn't be easy to convince."

Rosalind nodded, then turned back to me. "Mr. DeWitt, I assure you that we are on your side; however, we can only offer a modicum of assistance. The choices will all be up to you."

I sighed. "So, I've gotta do all the work, but you're gonna give me a little push every once in a while, is that what you're saying?"

Rosalind beamed. "I knew that we picked a smart one." She and her brother walked off.

Before I could ask them any more questions, a little kid bumped into me, causing me to look down. After the kid apologized and left, I looked up to find the Lutece siblings were gone. I looked around; there wasn't anywhere for them to go, so how did they disappear to?

Oh well, yet another weird piece of the puzzle that was Columbia.

**Aaaand… Cut! That's the first chapter of Bioshock Infinite: Hell in Heaven. There wasn't a whole lot of action in this chapter, but this was just an intro. The next chapters will be lengthier, louder and action-ier. For anyone who is reading this, remember: This is M-rated for a reason. There will be blood, violence, gore, SERIOUS language, topics that are uncomfortable for some people, and sexual tension. No, there won't be any lemons, get your mind out of the gutter. Anyway, yeah, it's a story based on an M-rated game, so I'm not going to hold back much. There will be some serious deviations from the original plot, however. Just a warning.**

**Anyway, I've got to go; my muffin minions are building me a floating city in my name, and I want to make sure that they got my statue right.**


	2. Chapter 2

**BIOSHOCK INFINITE DOES NOT BELONG TO ME, BUT WOULD YOU KINDLY GIVE ME THE RIGHTS TO IT?**

**I like this game, I really do. It's kind of freaky and dark, but at the same time, I find parts of it oddly charming and quirky. Then again, that might be my inner psychopath talking.**

Bioshock Infinite

Hell in Heaven

Chapter 2

Skyhooks, Guns and Other Remedies

Deciding not to get a headache from thinking about the Amazing Disappearing Luteces, I continued my way through the raffle section of the fair. I walked close to the crowd that was gathering in front of the stage; I guess that was where the raffle would actually take place. I was about halfway past the crowd when…

"Hey, mister!"

Son of a bitch. Somehow, I knew that I was the "mister" being called. I turned to see a young woman holding a basket filled with baseballs. Figuring that it would draw even more attention if I just ignored her, I walked up.

"You here for the raffle?"

"Uh, sorry," I said, trying to get away, "I don't have any money." Okay, that was a lie; at this point, I'd found about 150 silver eagles, but I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could.

The girl giggled. "Silly, you don't need to pay to play in the raffle; what, have you been living under a rock?"

Shit. I nearly got found out. Shrugging, I took a ball out of the proffered basket. I looked at the number painted on it…

"Seventy-seven," said the woman, "that's a lucky number. I'll be rooting for you." Then she winked at me and walked away.

Okay, this was getting ridiculous; I've had more girls come onto me in the last twenty minutes than in my first three years of high school! I mean seriously, I…

… Wait a minute.

Number 77.

_Do not pick #77._

Oh, crap, this can't be good.

Before I could think about dropping the ball and sneaking off, music started playing, confetti was thrown, and the crowd pressed around me. A man walked out onto the stage; he was tall, wearing brown clothes and a top hat. He even had a twirly mustache.

"And now," he said in a very announcer-esque voice, "let the 1912 raffle officially begin!"

_It's 2013, you idiot, _I thought as the crowd began to cheer.

"Bring me the bowl!" the man gestured to his right, as another young woman walked onstage with a large bowl, "Now, isn't that the prettiest young white girl in all of Columbia?"

Wait, what? Prettiest young _what_? That seemed pretty white-supremacist. I hope no one saw my face; I'm pretty sure that I had an uncomfortable expression right then.

The man drew a slip of paper from the bowl. "And the winner is… Number seventy-seven!"

Wait, I won? Cool! I never win anything! I tossed the baseball from my left hand to my right, not remembering that the scar could be seen.

"Number seventy-seven, come and claim your prize!" the music started up again as the curtains rose on the stage. Said stage was filled with cutouts of jungle trees and monkeys. Well that was a little weird, but whatever; maybe I was getting a lifetime supply of bananas.

Then I heard the screaming. Pulled forward were two people, a Caucasian man and an African woman. Each was tied to a stake and was struggling in vain to get free.

Why couldn't it have been a lifetime supply of bananas?

"Your prize is first throw!" The man was smiling at me like a proud parent, while the crowd backed up, presumably to give me room to stretch my throwing arm.

You know how I said that it was cool that I won? I take it back; this was just fucked up. They wanted me to basically stone these poor people? Like hell I would.

"What's the matter? Are you gonna throw it, or are you taking your coffee _black _these days?"

Okay, asshole, I wasn't going to throw the ball at the tied-up people to begin with, but now I am definitely gonna ruin your day.

"I got something for you, you son of a bitch!" I pulled my arm back to hurl it at the jackass, but someone caught my arm. I looked next to me to find a police officer. Before I could shake free, another cop grabbed my left arm.

The cop on the right looked at my hand. "It's him!" he yelled!

Oh shit, _now _I remember the scar.

"Now, where'd you get that brand, boy?" asked the cop on my left.

The man in the top hat waved his finger in front of my nose. "Don't you know that that mark makes you the backstabbin' snake-in-the-grass False Shepherd?"

So I've been told, but at least I'm not a racist prick, so I've got that in my favor.

The man spread his arms and shouted to the citizens in the crowd, who were recoiling in fear. "We ain't gonna let a False Shepherd into our flock! Show 'im what we've got planned, boys!"

The cop on my left pulled out what looked like a gun; but instead of a barrel, it had a three-pronged, circular hook thing on it. As he pulled the trigger, the hook spun faster, as he pushed it towards my face.

I'm not sure why I did it, but I threw the baseball, still in my hand, straight up. Both cops were distracted, loosening their grip. I yanked my right arm to the left, hoping to cause the two to crash into each other while I made my escape. What I didn't expect was for the cop's face to collide with the hook-thing still in the other cop's hand. Blood sprayed up and down, and the cop fell to the ground, dead.

Oh, shit, um, I killed a guy.

I heard screams. One of them might have come from me, I don't really remember. One of the only things that I do remember from that moment is the crowd of people running away.

The other cop, after composing himself, ran at me with a nightstick. I needed something to defend myself with, and the only thing around was a very bloody hook-thing. Swallowing bile, I yanked the hook out of the dead man's face, trying to ignore the sound of ripping flesh. I swung the hook up and right, not sure if I would hit anything. I did; the hook embedded itself into the man's temple, killing him instantly.

Shit, I did it again!

Before I could come to grips with what I'd done, several more cops ran at me. At this point, I was freaking out, and rightly so; people were trying to murder me! I swung my hook, knocking aside nightsticks, and jamming the pointy end of the hook into throats and heads.

When they were all dead, I looked at the weapon in my hands. The end of the hook was dripping with gore at this point, and I dropped it; I think a small part of me rationalized that it was blunted and too covered in human remains to be an effective weapon. The rest of me, however, just didn't need the reminder of the people I'd brutally killed.

Fortunately, I wasn't unarmed for long, because I found a clean "Skyhook", at least that was what was printed on the side, clipped to one of the dead cops. Okay, I could use that. While picking up the Skyhook, I noticed that the man had a few silver eagles on him.

You know what, fuck it. I'm not here of my own free will, the people here are crazy racists who are trying to kill me, and I'm freaked out. If taking stuff off of dead people is going to up my chances of making it out of here alive, I'll take anything and everything.

I rifled through the pockets of the other dead men, taking a few more silver eagles, plus a blue bottle labeled "Salts". According to the label, if I couldn't use a Vigor anymore, all I had to do was drink a Salt and I'd be refueled. Good to know that I wouldn't run out of gas. I pocketed my stolen loot and continued on my way to the tower.

Unfortunately, I didn't get very far before I ran into another couple of cops. I slashed the throat of the first one open and tried to rush the next one, when I heard a loud bang, and something whizzed by my ear.

Holy shit, that guy had a gun!

Thankfully, I was able to get in close and slam the guy's face into a stone pillar several times. I don't know if that killed him, but all that mattered was that he was out of the fight. I picked up the fallen pistol and some of the ammo in the guy's pocket.

I couldn't tell what kind of pistol it was; it was certainly old-fashioned, but it wasn't like any of the guns that grandpa showed me from his World War 2 days. Still, I knew enough about guns to know how to load, aim and fire. After checking it out, and firing a couple of times into the distance to get a feel for it, I moved on.

I didn't get very far before I noticed something weird. Well, something else that was weird, you know what I mean. I had seen the long cables, like the ones on roller coasters, connecting the floating buildings, but I hadn't given them much thought. Apparently, people could use the Skyhooks to ride along the rails. Huh; I wondered if I could do that.

Anyway, several more cops jumped off of the rails and onto a docked airship, which kind of looked like a flying boat, and charged toward me. This time, however, I just pointed my pistol and opened fire; a few headshots later, and there were four dead cops.

What can I say? I'm a pretty good shot.

Before I moved on, I noticed a vending machine close by. Deciding to experiment, now that no one was trying to kill me, I sent a Possession into the machine. Walking up to it, I noticed the price drop. It seemed that when I Possessed a vending machine, I got a discount. Nice. Anyway, the only thing for sale was what appeared to be an upgrade for my Possession Vigor. How coincidental. The upgrade was marked "military only", but I got it anyway. Apparently, this upgrade allowed me to Possess living people for a short time, then caused the victim to commit suicide once the effect wore off.

… _Why the fuck would anyone make that!?_

Oh, well, if it got me a temporary ally for a while and removed a potential threat, who was I to argue? Besides, that would-be Possessed would have been trying to kill me anyway. I drank the Vigor and moved onto the airship; it was connected to the next "island" that I needed to cross.

At the front of the ship was what looked like another vending machine; I mean, it had a mechanical man connected to it like all the others, but instead of a box to dispense goodies, it had what looked like a machine gun. Thankfully, it wasn't pointed at me, but I approached it carefully anyway. The vendors had been automated, so I figured that there was no reason that a gun turret couldn't be automated either.

I was about to pass it and jump down onto the "island", when several more cops showed up and started firing up at me. Geez, how many cops were in this goddamn city? I took cover behind the turret, and noticed that it wasn't firing at them. It must have had some way to distinguish friend from foe. Then I got an idea; I threw a Possession into the turret and, sure enough, it opened fire on the cops. A few seconds later and they were all dead.

I patted the mechanical head of the turret. "Good boy, you get a metal cookie." Then I jumped down and looted the bodies, er, I mean, salvaged useful material. Yeah, that sounds better. I got some more pistol ammo, some silver eagles and another bottle of Salts.

I continued on my merry way until I ran into yet another group of cops. These guys were really starting to piss me off. Deciding to test out my upgraded Possession, I flung my hand at one of the guys. Nothing happened. I dove behind a tree while trying to figure out what happened. Then I remembered; I only had limited uses of a Vigor before I had to use a Salt. Reaching into my jacket, I pulled out a blue bottle and drank it.

Yuck, I could see why they called it a Salt; it tasted like a salty Gatorade. Still, I got my Vigor back, and flung my hand at one of the cops.

The green ghost jumped at, and then into, the poor sap. Kind of freaky, but it was nice to see the guy shoot his buddies instead of me. I got up from my cover and walked up to him, just as the Vigor wore off. I reached for my pistol, thinking I might have to shoot him, but there wasn't a need. He put his own pistol against his temple and pulled the trigger.

Oh yeah, I forgot; side-effects include suicide after use. Now that's a hell of a depressant.

After taking a few bullets and silver eagles off of the bodies, I kept going until I ran into, say it with me now, _another_ group of cops. Only this time, they had a turret with them. Thankfully, I had my own anti-turret in the form of my Possession. I threw it at the turret, then dove for cover. Once the sound of gunfire ceased, I poked my head out from behind the wall and saw that everyone was dead.

Does it count as murder if the turret killed them and not me?

I walked through a gate, expecting trouble; after all, it's all I've been getting since I got here. What I didn't expect was what the next couple of cops shouted.

"Call the Fireman!"

"Here comes the Fireman!"

Fireman? What, was I gonna get blasted by a hose or something? I pushed open another gate, noting that the metal was kind of hot; not burn-my-hands hot, but warmer than it should have been.

Then I saw him. Apparently the name was literal, because out of the smoke in the street was a guy that was _on fucking fire_!

"Burn in the name of the Prophet!" the psycho raised his arm, and a ball of fire popped into his hand.

Oh shit.

I ran behind a wall, just barely avoiding a small blast of fire. Poking out of cover, I snapped an entire clips' worth of ammo into the sucker, and he didn't drop. Instead, he charged right at me! We ended up doing a little song-and-dance, with me running from cover to cover, firing as I went, while he tried to blast me with flame. I guess the heavy mask on his head didn't help his aim.

Eventually, after I put half a dozen rounds right between his eyes, the bastard finally died. But when he did, the asshole exploded! The blast was enough to knock me against a cart. Rubbing my sore back as I got up, I went over to what was left of the Fireman. There wasn't much, save for…

Hello, what was this? I picked up a red bottle, wincing slightly at the heat. It was another Vigor, called Devil's Kiss. It had a carved she-devil blowing fire onto her hand at the top.

"Well, you only live once." I popped off the lid and drank the Vigor.

You know, some people say that drinking alcohol is like drinking fire. I tell you now, that's bullshit. _This _was drinking fire; it actually felt like flame was going down into my throat. Then the sensation of heat spread, first to my gut, then to my chest and then to my hands. To my horror, the tips of my fingers had burst into flames; the flesh of my hands literally began to burn off, and I could see charred bone.

Needless to say, I freaked out.

But then it was over, and my hands suddenly healed. Whoever made these fucking Vigors really should try to avoid the traumatic side-effects. It might help boost sales.

I kept on moving, always keeping the tower as a landmark. I nearly got turned into bloody cheese when a turret opened fire on me. Luck must have been with me, because I ducked just in time. Out of reflex, I threw a Possession at the turret, where it subsequently opened up on a few cops. One of the cops managed to get out of its line of sight, and charged me.

Deciding to test my new pyrokinetic abilities, I tried to use the Devil's Kiss. To my surprise, a fiery grenade shot out of my palm and into the guy's face. It was at this point that I realized that I could switch between Vigors with just a thought.

Seeing that no one was trying to kill me at the moment, I walked up to a building that seemed to be the only way to the next part of the "island". It was a little establishment called the Blue Ribbon. Keeping my pistol, and my scarred hand, inside my coat pocket, I marched inside.

…

The Blue Ribbon was, in fact, a bar. Granted, it was a nice bar, at least to me, since I'd never been inside a bar before. At least it was clean. As I swiped a few silver eagles off a table, I heard a familiar voice.

"We have company."

"We do indeed."

Make that two familiar voices. I turned to the right to see Rosalind and Robert Lutece. How the hell had they gotten here so fast? Robert was wiping the counter, while Rosalind was holding a platter with a yellow bottle on it. Both seemed like my being here was the most natural thing in the world.

"Hey there, guys," I waved nonchalantly, "did you miss me?"

"You were gone?" asked Robert.

"To him, we've been separated for some time." Said Rosalind.

Okay, weird, but they haven't done anything to screw me over yet, so I'll let them say what they want. I walked over to the cash register and pulled out a couple dozen silver eagles; neither Lutece seemed to mind. As I approached the door to leave, Rosalind held out the yellow bottle.

"You'll find that quite useful." Said Robert.

"The difference between life and death." Added his sister.

"Another gift?" I asked with a grin, "Aw, you two are spoiling me."

Still, I picked up the bottle. It was called a "Lutece Infusion", whatever that meant. I popped off the cork and drank it. It tasted like… nothing, actually. It tasted like nothing at all. I think that was the freakiest thing I've poured down my throat today; and considering that the last one melted the flesh off of my hands, that was saying something.

Then I felt a shock. Not the kind of shock like when you're meeting your long-lost brother or something, but like when you lick a battery. Except this battery sent me hurtling across the room and onto a table.

"Ooh," I moaned as I picked myself up, "what was that?"

"Magnetic Repulsion Field." Said Robert, as if that explained everything.

"Hmm," said Rosalind, "surprising."

"Surprising that it worked?" asked her brother.

"Surprising that it didn't kill him." Clarified Rosalind.

Wait, what?

"But a Magnetic Repulsion Field around one's body can come in handy." Said Robert.

"If it doesn't kill you." Said Rosalind.

Again; wait, what?

"A fair point."

"Uh, excuse me?" I asked. I raised my hand like I was in a classroom. "What exactly does a Magnetic whatever Field do?"

The Lutece twins sighed in unison. "The Magnetic _Repulsion _Field, or MRF if you prefer, utilizes the bioelectric aura and amplifies it, creating a protective membrane that pulses from your body at several thousand pulses per second."

I blinked; did that mean…? "So, I'm like Superman now?"

Rosalind raised an eyebrow, and I swear the smallest smile crossed Robert's lips. "In a sense," said Rosalind, "the field is weak right now, and will only be able to take a few blows before being overwhelmed. It will recharge, but I suggest you avoid getting struck until then."

"Additionally," said Robert, "the pulses continually clean dirt and other outside sources from clothes and skin."

I looked down at my clothes; sure enough, the dirt and odd spatters of blood were gone. Ha! Screw bleach, _this _is the ultimate stain-remover. On top of that, I had a shield. A freaking shield. I think that my survival odds just went up.

"Thanks, guys."

Both twins looked at me with mild surprise.

"I would have thought you'd be mad that you almost died." Said Rosalind.

I thought about that for a second. "Well, I guess if I did die, I'd be a little upset," I joked, "but since I'm not, I'll just say thanks for the shield."

Rosalind nodded, but held up a hand as I started to leave. "There are two more matters, Mr. DeWitt."

Uh-oh. This could be bad.

"The first is some advice; there are more Infusions throughout the city. Some will make your MRF more durable, some will increase your own physical resilience, and some will allow you to use your Vigors longer before you require the use of a Salt."

Never mind, that was good; it might require me to do a little searching, but if it meant that I'd have even higher odds of surviving a firefight, I'd take it.

"So, what's the other matter?"

"This." Rosalind produced a key and handed it to me; it wasn't very special, just an iron key. The only odd thing about it was the other end; on one side was the silhouette of a cage, and on the other side was the silhouette of a bird.

"What's this for?" I asked, even while I put it in my pocket.

"The first step to trust is freedom." Robert said cryptically.

"With the key, will freedom be had." Added Rosalind.

I stared at them for a moment. "So the key is important?"

"Yes." Both twins said in unison.

I rolled my eyes as I left through the back door. "Why didn't you just say that?"

…

After leaving the not-so-dynamic duo behind, I headed through the kitchen, snagging a sandwich and a few spare silver eagles along the way. Why can't people put their money in a safe place? Anyway, I exited the building and took a look around. The city was actually pretty nice to look at, now that no one was shooting at me. The buildings floating near me had a quaint, late 19th-century look to them, and the clouds below them gave the whole thing a bit of a Miyazaki-feel to it.

Thankfully, I still had the tower as a landmark, and what a landmark it was. It was shaped to look like an angel, and it was coated in what looked like gold. Talk about posh, right? I tried to find a way across to the next building, but there were no bridges. It just ended. Great, I had no idea what to do.

I headed to the right, and looked at the closest building; it had some hooks on the side, which might have been useful if I wasn't about fifty feet away from the damn things. I picked up my Skyhook, which I'd kept clipped to my belt, and pulled the trigger. The triple-hook spun faster and faster, and just for the hell of it, I pointed it at the closest hook.

And then I found myself flying through the air.

"AAAAAAAAHHH!"

I stopped screaming once I found myself attached to the hook. Somehow, the Skyhook could pull me to certain objects; specialized magnets, maybe? I never did find out. Not that it mattered; now, I had a way forward. I swung my way to the next hook, and then to another building entirely. The Skyhook seemed to make sure that I didn't fall. As long as I didn't look down, it was actually kind of fun.

After a couple more jumps, I noticed a man standing guard at the next "island". He was armed, but he wasn't a cop; believe me, at this point I could recognize one of those guys easily. He was wearing a grey uniform, and was toting around some kind of rifle. Behind some crates, I noticed another man in the same uniform. Considering they were probably on the lookout for me, I decided to take the initiative for once.

I swung back and forth to build up some momentum, then launched myself at the first guy, Skyhook-first. The hook smashed into his skull; I have no idea if that killed him, but I wasn't going to stop to check on him anytime soon. Before his buddy had a chance to fight back, I whipped out my pistol and drilled him between the eyes. The whole fight took about four seconds.

Ezio's got nothing on me.

Holstering my pistol, I picked up one of the rifles; it wasn't too heavy, but it was a little wide. It wasn't like any of the guns that grandpa had showed me. Deciding to experiment, I braced myself, aimed at a building a hundred feet away, and opened fire. I didn't expect the thing to be fully automatic! If I hadn't braced myself, the damn thing probably would've knocked me on my ass.

Well, that's nice; I had about 200 silver eagles, the ability to take control of people, I could set people on fire, I had a pistol and now a fucking machine gun.

I was wrapped up in my thoughts, so I didn't notice a third soldier charge me, swinging a truncheon straight into my head. The blow might have killed me, had a yellow barrier not stopped it.

Oh, right, and I had a force field. Awesome.

The soldier was so dumbfounded that it was pathetically easy to lift my new gun and blast him away. I quickly scrounged some more ammo off of the corpses, as well as some from a small box, and moved on.

I didn't get very far before another soldier started shooting at me with his own machine gun. Thankfully, my shield held, and I was able to take him down. Another handful of guys showed up, and we did the whole dance over again. Even though Rosalind had said that my shield was pretty weak at this point, it had held up remarkably well. Still, I kept to cover as much as I could, so maybe that helped.

And then shit hit the fan. Again.

An airship flew up and next to the "island" that I was on, and the soldiers on board opened fire. Still, I had a way to even the odds. I threw a Possession at them, not really caring who I hit. Between my own weapon and that of my new "friend", the soldiers were dead in seconds. I still flinched when the guy I'd Possessed shot himself. I still kept forgetting about that part.

Seeing as how there weren't any more guys attacking me from that side, I moved on, still headed towards the tower. Of course, as is my luck, I didn't make it ten steps before another pack of soldiers ambushed me. This group was led by some woman spouting religious zealotry. I set her on fire, then gunned down the rest.

I took a moment to drink a Salt and catch my breath. At this point, I'd lost count of the number of people I'd killed; maybe around fifty. Still, I couldn't help but wonder; how many times can you kill people in self-defense before someone calls bullshit?

Another thought came to mind; how was it that I, an untrained 18-year-old, could take down police, superpowered people and now soldiers? My best guess was that they were so focused on killing the "False Shepherd" that they didn't focus on their basic training, which should have told them to take cover. So far, no one had done that. I, on the other hand, having been very aware of my desire for self-preservation, continually hid behind anything that seemed bulletproof.

Or everyone in this city is an idiot, I don't know.

And I might be one too, since I was just standing there, not paying attention to the soldier who unloaded a clip into my side. Thank you, Lutece twins, for my shield. The now-familiar yellow field popped up, but then it shattered. One of the bullets grazed my jaw. For those who have never been shot, let me tell you: even a graze will hurt like a bitch. Thankfully for me, the asshole was in the process of reloading when I set his head on fire. His death was quick, but probably very painful.

After watching my field regenerate and then disappear, I searched the corpse; in one of his pockets was a small first-aid kit. I pulled out a bandage and pressed it up against my jaw. At least I didn't have to worry about blood staining my clothes; again, thank you Rosalind and Robert.

I ducked inside of a house; it might have been a small hotel, I don't know. Anyway, I didn't see anyone home, so I did what any person who was hunted as a pariah by psychopaths would have done: I shamelessly looted the place. There were some silver eagles, some food, and some Salts. The last room, however, had a treasure chest. No, I'm not kidding, it looked just like a pirates' treasure chest, padlocked and everything. Well, anything that's worth locking up is probably important or valuable, right? Well, I couldn't pick the lock, and I didn't see a key anywhere, so I improvised; and by that I mean that I fired a few rounds into the lock with my machine gun.

…Sweet.

Inside was not only a crap-load of silver eagles, maybe close to a hundred, but also all three types of Lutece Infusions. Like before, the yellow one tasted like nothing, but hey, it improved my shield. The red one, the one that kept me alive longer if my shield gave out, tasted like blood. Yuck. The blue one, the one that allowed me to use my Vigors for longer periods of time, tasted like chlorine. Still, I got upgraded, ate a sandwich that I found, and continued on my merry way.

That is, I was going to, when I saw that someone was blocking my way. Whoops; I didn't know that someone was home when I was robbing them. I was about to explain when the guy, who wasn't a soldier or a cop, whispered to me.

"Hey, hey, it's all right. I'm not like them; I'm a progressive."

Good for you; does this mean you'll help me with my insurance?

The guy motioned for me to leave through his balcony; I didn't say anything. I don't think he would have been so accommodating if he knew I'd robbed him blind. Still, I took his advice and headed to the balcony upstairs. I jumped to a hook in the wall of the next building, then used it to swing to another "island". I pushed open a door and walked inside, machine gun at the ready.

"Violence is not the answer!" I froze at the sound of the voice. I slowly walked further in, listening as the guy continued. "As much as I support her cause and her people, blood must not be shed!"

Yeah, tell that to the several dozen guys who've been trying to murder me over the last hour or so.

"What do you expect these poor unfortunates to do?" asked a woman's voice. "How they've been treated… it was bound to happen!"

Wait, was there more going on here? Was I in the middle of some kind of revolution? Well that's just great, now I have another reason to get the hell out of this city.

I walked around a printing press (yeah, those exist, go figure), and found the couple who'd been arguing. The woman let out a soft shriek, but they didn't reach for weapons, so I didn't have to kill them. Hooray.

"It's him!" said the man, "The one they're after. Go… they're looking for you."

No shit, Sherlock.

I was about to go through the door, when a knock came from outside. All three of us froze as a voice was heard.

"Police! We're in need of your assistance!"

"They're here!" said the panicked woman.

"Shh!" said the man, "Keep your voice down."

That didn't work, sadly, because two cops kicked in the door, while three soldiers charged in. I dove for cover, but the man and woman were gunned down.

Have I mentioned that I hate this city?

I set the cops on fire, and Possessed one of the soldiers. I killed one soldier while my "ally" killed another. I moved to loot the bodies, not looking as the last soldier committed suicide. I pushed open the doors and was nearly ventilated by four more soldiers. Two were quickly mowed down thanks to my trusty machine gun, and the other two met a fiery grave. I pocketed some more ammo and cash, and moved on.

I moved as quickly as I could, Possessing another turret as a deterrent for any pursuers. Oddly enough, there weren't any. There were plenty of signs that people had left in a hurry, however. There were picnic supplies everywhere, as well as fallen silver eagles. I didn't spend a ton of time looting, because I just wanted to get the fuck out of there.

I pushed forward, remembering to keep the tower in sight; as long as I did that, I was on the right track. I eventually found a building that connected to another "island" that would get me closer to where I needed to go. I pushed open the door, and marched on through.

Probably one of the worst of my many mistakes during my stay in Columbia.

**Second chapter is done! Wow, I forgot how harrowing the game can be sometimes! Still, if you know what you're doing, the fights can be a breeze. Now, I know that I changed some stuff from the original game, but this is a reimagining. So I can do that. Anyway, Booker is on his way to meeting some of the creepiest enemies thus far in the game, and will soon meet this "Elizabeth" person he's been told to help. The dialogue between those two is going to be a little changed up, considering Booker is from 2013, and will make references to stuff that no one will understand.**

**One thing that I did change was the effect of the MRF. Particularly the "stain remover" effect. I put that in because otherwise, Booker would be dripping blood by the first hour. **

**See you next chapter!**

**Good night, sleep tight, don't let the muffins bite.**


	3. Chapter 3

**BIOSHOCK INFINITE DOES NOT BELONG TO ME. STILL, I'D RATHER TAKE COLUMBIA OVER RAPTURE ANY DAY; MOSTLY BECAUSE LITTLE SISTERS ARE REALLY CREEPY.**

**After some consideration, I've decided on what Booker's standard loadout will be for most of the story; it'll be because he'll become particularly used to two or three weapons only. Remember, this Booker is not a soldier, so he isn't as adept with weapons. However, he will be using plenty of different Vigor powers, seeing as they aren't being lugged around.**

Bioshock Infinite

Chapter 3

Clever Girls and Annoying Birds

I am an idiot; I admit it freely, because if I wasn't an idiot, I wouldn't have gone into the creepy temple-like place. But I did, and I still get nightmares. Not because I had to kill people there, I'd done plenty of that already, but because of one particular power I received there. I don't care if it became one of my most-used Vigors, it creeped me out every time I used it.

So, yeah, I entered the temple and immediately raised an eyebrow; in the courtyard in front of me was a statue of the big man himself, Zachary Comstock, wrestling with a serpent. On a plaque were the words "Comstock fights the serpent of nations". Good for you, Comstock; you fight snakes; I fight killer sky-racists. To each his own, right?

Seeing as how no one was around, I walked inside and took in my surroundings. Aside from the creepy mist, dead plants and cawing crows, it wasn't that bad.

… I really need to have my head examined after all this is done.

I entered the main temple, which was called the Fraternal Order of the Raven. Right in front of the door was a plate of food, being pecked at by crows. Okay, I get it; these people have a bird-fetish.

As I scooped up a few silver eagles off of the floor, I noticed portraits on the walls; they were all of the same person, and they looked familiar, but I just couldn't place who it was…

As I moved into the next room, I noticed another statue. This time, however, it wasn't one of Comstock; instead, it was a statue of the same man in the portraits, holding a gun. On the plaque in front of the statue was one name.

John Wilkes Booth.

Oh… oh _fuck _no. These people were worshipping the man who'd assassinated Abraham Lincoln? What the freaking hell is wrong with this city!?

After shaking off my shock, and taking care to avoid the statue, I walked into a side-room. Inside, several men turned and stood up to look at me, then the machine gun in my hands. The tension was building; I don't know why I did what I did, maybe I wanted to try something different.

"Uh," I said as I waved my hand in a mystical motion, "these are not the droids you're looking for?"

Or maybe I'm really, really stupid.

The men jumped at me with truncheons in their hands. Seeing as how I didn't want the entire temple to know I was here, I Possessed one of the men, who promptly killed another, while I snapped the neck of the last one with my Skyhook. Gross. As I looted the corpses for cash and Salts, my Possession wore off, and the victim proceeded to beat himself to death with his own club. Again, gross.

I passed through a hallway to find what looked like a big dining hall, with a giant table piled high with food. Most of it was going bad, and all of it was being pecked at by more crows. I moved through the area as quickly as I could, since the smell of spoiled food, feathers and bird crap is not a pleasant odor. The giant painting of Booth shooting Lincoln in the back of the head didn't help either.

After realizing that there wasn't any way to get out of here through the first floor, I headed upstairs to see…

Oh, goddammit.

_More _paintings of Booth. I started to get the feeling that he was important to these guys, I don't know why. I stepped forward and spotted about a dozen men wearing bird-themed robes. Just what I needed, a bunch of Klan furries. With my luck, they'd be armed.

One of the men was speaking to the others passionately. "And so, the Prophet led us into Peking, where we demonstrated to the Sodom Below the true mission our Founders had given us!"

Did the Founding Fathers even know where Peking was? And what was Columbia doing there to begin with?

"And when the Mandarins and hypocrites of Washington betrayed him, our Prophet did not heel!"

Good to know that there were people who weren't a bunch of assholes who had tried to talk sense into these idiots. Wait, Washington? The government knew about this city and never told anyone? For the love of… okay, Area 51 is one thing, but how do you hide a flying city of zealots from the world? This was getting really confusing.

I crept down the stairs, finger on the trigger of my machine gun; I'd never liked racism, and one time I'd even punched a guy back home in New York for hitting a black kid and saying the "N-word". Now I had a gun, I was pissed, and these guys were probably going to try to kill me anyway, so I did something that was very stupid. I gave a loud whistle, and all the men turned to face me.

"John Wilkes Booth went out like a bitch!" I taunted. Then I ran like a coward up the stairs, as several men opened fire with machine guns. Apparently, people brought automatic weapons with them to church. Probably a good idea, in this case.

I fired back, as well as launching two Possessions at the guys in the back. Between the three of us, plus a few well-aimed fireballs, the crow-guys were all dead. As I began looting, the Possessions wore off simultaneously; the two victims raised their machine guns to their respective heads and pulled the trigger. Suicide in stereo.

Before I left, I noticed a familiar yellow bottle on a shelf. Sure enough, it was a Lutece Infusion, and behind it… Yes! One for my health and my Vigors as well. I guess good things come in threes. After drinking the bottles, and taking a Salt to replenish my Vigors, I moved on.

I'm especially glad that I had improved my shield, because the door burst open and four soldiers rushed in; they must have heard the gunfire. The bullets ripped into me, only to be stopped by my handy-dandy shield. I shot one in the head, set another on fire, and left the third guy to the last, because I Possessed him. After they were all dead, I looted the bodies yet again, and kept walking.

I wandered through the rest of the temple, not encountering any more resistance. It was almost boring as I pilfered more cash and Salts from room after room. And then I opened the last door. It was partially blocked from the inside, so I could only open it partway. I wish I hadn't.

I saw a man of Asian descent tied to a table, screaming for help. Before I could get inside, a flock of crows surrounded him, shredding his flesh and tearing out his eyes. I slammed into the door, knocking it down, but by the time I got to the guy, he was dead. I turned to my left and saw a darkly-dressed man carrying what looked like a small coffin walk into a courtyard.

Two things: one, that was when I officially started to hate birds. Two, that asshole was a dead man walking. I rushed after him, ready to pump him full of lead, but he'd disappeared. All that was left was a pile of feathers.

I walked into the area, which I realized wasn't a courtyard, but a giant bird-cage. A flock of crows flew overhead.

"No mercy!" I turned to see the man with the coffin charging at me with a machete. Rather than try to fight him in close combat, I fired a burst from my machine gun. At first, the rounds slowed him down, and then he vanished in a cloud of feathers.

"Hey birdie!" I yelled, hoping to draw him out, "Come out and play!"

He did, but not in the manner that I was expecting; he held out his hands, and a dozen feathers grew from his skin, fell off, and turned into a flock of crows!

I fucking hate this city, I really do.

Fortunately, the crows didn't breach my shield, but I knew that with enough effort, they'd get through. I spun around and fired a full clip from my machine gun. After the birds were dead, I threw a fireball at the bird-guy, setting him on fire. He teleported (at least, that's what I'm calling his ability), but I found him again. Funny thing was, he was still on fire; a few pistol rounds finished the job.

After he died, I looted his corpse and found a bottle with the head of a bird carved onto the top; it was called "Murder of Crows". Did that mean that I would get the same powers as the bird-guy? While the ability to take people down with swarms of birds sounded useful, I really didn't want to be associated with this place any longer than I had to.

I weighed the pros and cons, before finally drinking the Vigor; it tasted like chicken. No, I'm serious, it tasted like liquefied chicken. I suddenly got dizzy, and started coughing. I felt something come out of my mouth; I thought it was blood, but it was actually a few feathers. As if that wasn't freaky enough, I noticed feathers growing out of my arms, and talons coming out of my fingers instead of nails.

Great, I was turning into Howl, but I wasn't as cool.

After a few seconds, my arms turned back to normal, and I felt better. I made my way out of that damn temple, hoping that I would never go back.

…

After getting out of the bird-temple, I made my way to a station that led to gondolas that took people to various parts of the city. I was kind of thankful that it was closed down; that way, I didn't need to worry about innocent people. While there, I discovered that the place with the tower was actually called "Monument Island", and had been closed for some time due to "much-needed repair". Yeah, I'm not the only one calling bullshit on that, am I?

Anyway, I noticed a couple of vending machines; one was for Vigors, the other was for more mundane items. I perused the Vigor vending machine, after Possessing it to lower its prices, and found two upgrades to my arsenal. One allowed my Devil's Kiss to do more damage and add a bigger explosion, and the other caused anyone that was killed while being attacked by my Murder of Crows to be turned into yet more crows.

That last one was freaky, but I bought them both; even with my discount, it was a lot of cash to burn, and I was left nearly broke. Still, with the way people left money all over the place, I wouldn't stay poor for long. I also bought some ammunition for my machine gun, then walked out to the station proper.

At this point, I was starting to see a weird pattern; every time I got some sort of upgrade, I got into a really big fight. And since I'd gotten a new Vigor, upgraded two Vigors and boosted my shield, I was probably in for the biggest fight yet.

Actually, I was both right and wrong; I was only attacked by a handful of soldiers and a turret. Staying out of sight of the turret, I tried out my new Vigor. I concentrated, and sent a wave of crows at two of the guards; while they were being mauled, I shot them with precise bursts from my machine gun. Sure enough, just like the upgrade said, the bodies burst into new crows, and the much bigger flock tore apart the remaining men.

Just for fun, I Possessed the turret. Besides, it might come in handy later. I looted the shredded remains of the soldiers, finding a Salt, which I used, some silver eagles and some ammo. I looked around, but my birds were nowhere to be seen. I shrugged; whatever, they did their job, so I didn't need them anymore.

I exited the station, seeing more of those cables in the sky, as well as a gondola. I headed for it, but the robot pilot (no, I'm not making that up) told me that it was unable to reach Monument Island, and that the only current method of transportation was by use of a sky-line.

"Sky-line, huh?" I looked at my Skyhook. "Well, if those cops from before could do it, why not me?"

I walked directly underneath the closest one, seeing that it was headed to the "island" next to the tower. I raised my Skyhook and jumped; thankfully, it attached, otherwise I'd have looked pretty silly. I pulled the trigger of my Skyhook, and as the hook spun, it propelled me forward. It was actually pretty fun, just like a roller-coaster; as long as I didn't look down to see the several-thousand-foot fall to the ocean below.

As I moved along the sky-line, I realized that it didn't go directly to my intended destination; rather, it went to another "island" that _did _go there. As I came close to my stop, I saw several soldiers hopping off an airship and onto the "ground". Still pumped with adrenaline after my ride, I did something that I normally wouldn't have done.

Then again, I can shoot fire and killer birds out of my hands, so I don't think I can count as being normal anymore.

I swung from the sky-line, crossed about twenty feet of open air, and slammed my Skyhook into the last of the soldiers getting off. Now that I had a height advantage, I rained fire down on them, in the form of both bullets and Vigor. After they were dead and looted, I moved along, picking up a Salt from a nearby cart.

"Anything?" I froze at the sound of a voice.

"Nah; he's gone to ground." Said another.

"Better start bustin' down doors." Said a third.

"I'm not bustin' down any doors!" protested the second, "Do you know what kind of swells live here?"

"Did you hear what this guy did?" asked the first.

Oh, shit, were they talking about me?

"What do you expect from an anarchist?"

Hey! I didn't _intend_ to start fucking up your city! You shot my plane down, so at the very least, I am a _reluctant _anarchist.

"Fitzroy's got 'em all trained like dogs," continued the last guy, "they go for the throat!"

Oh. Maybe they weren't talking about me.

"And he draws blood today! Today, of all days!"

All right, I give it a 50-50 chance that they're talking about me. I turned a corner to see the trio of voices, whose owners turned out to be three cops. I smirked; I'd been fighting soldiers and people with superpowers, cops weren't a threat anymore. One of them turned and saw me.

"Oh shit!" he reached for his pistol, but I sent a flock of crows at them. It turned out that the cops had less protective outfits than the soldiers, so they were killed before I even pulled the trigger of my guns. Then I noticed that after a few seconds, the crows exploded in a shower of feathers.

Okay, so I create the birds, and then they die after a minute? Pushing that disturbing ethical dilemma to the side, I went over to loot the bodies, picked up some ammo and cash, and moved on.

I noticed another sky-line, but it was too far away for my Skyhook to reach it; I needed to get some elevation first. I noticed a wall-hook near a balcony; that was much closer, so I raised the Skyhook, shot forward, and yelled something I've always wanted to say.

"I'm Batmaaaaan!"

I think my proclamation stunned the soldier coming out onto the balcony, because he just stared at me long enough for me to swing forward and knock him over the edge of the "island" to his death. Not-so-whoops. I spun around to see another soldier inside, leveling a machine gun at me. I was faster, though, and blew him away with my own.

After picking up some ammo off the guy, I continued inside, swiping some silver eagles along the way. The place was a boarded-up mess; it looked like if anyone had been living here, they weren't doing so legally.

"Rrraaah!" a soldier ran at me from around the corner, wielding a truncheon. I almost rolled my eyes before I killed him with my pistol; idiot could have actually done something to me if he'd waited for me to come around the corner.

Upon reaching a different balcony, I found myself level with the sky-line I'd needed. I jumped to it, and began another ride. As I neared the "island" neighboring Monument Island, I nearly had a heart-attack; there were _dozens _of soldiers aiming machine guns at me. Even if I was in cover, they had more than enough men to surround and kill me; as it was, I was hanging from a metal stick in the middle of the air. The soldiers took aim…

"**Stand down!**" Came a booming voice over a loudspeaker. The soldiers all dropped their weapons, fell to their knees and lowered their heads in what looked like prayer.

I landed behind them, and cautiously approached. Unlike mere seconds ago, they didn't look at me with zealous fury; in fact, they didn't even look at me at all. Despite the freakiness, I moved into the building in front of them. Inside were several more soldiers, all of whom ignored me. In front of me was a platform, vaguely reminiscent of an elevator, and in front of that was a projector that showed the face of a man I'd seen all day.

The Prophet, Zachary Comstock.

Maybe it was my curiosity getting the better of me, or maybe I felt emboldened by the fact that no one was going to shoot me yet, but I stepped onto the elevator. I pushed the "up" button, and as I rose, Comstock spoke; I guess he could see me, though from where, I couldn't tell.

"**I know why you've come, False Shepherd. You have come from the Sodom Below to lead my Lamb astray, but thy crook is bent and thy path is twisted.**"

Oh, yeah, the Lamb. I'd sort of pieced together that "Lamb of Columbia" and the Elizabeth girl that I was supposed to help were one and the same. And I'll have you know that I don't even own a crook, so fuck you, Comstock!

"What makes you think I'm here to lead her astray?" I asked, hoping to throw him off.

Comstock shook his head. "**You are an agent of chaos, sent by America to take what they desire: my Lamb. I will not allow you to take what I have already rescued.**"

Okay, I was pretty confused. "What do you mean, 'rescued'?" I asked, "Are you saying that you took that girl from somewhere?"

Comstock stared at me. "**Your masters already know. Their avarice and their need to possess what they cannot have will be their undoing, for the Lamb will rain fire on the Sodom Below!**"

I was starting to get a migraine, whether from the volume or the rhetoric, I don't know. "Look, I don't know why you're so pissed at America, and I hate to break it to you, but the States aren't like how they were in 1912! And also, the year is 2013, dude!"

Comstock blinked, then it seemed like he understood something. "**Ah, that explains it; you survived our Reap, and you do not know where you are.**"

Before I could ask him to explain his nuttiness, he continued. "**How is the country doing, False Shepherd?**"

My God, this elevator was slow.

"Okay, first, stop calling me that, my name is Booker DeWitt." Probably not a good idea to give him my name, but I didn't care at the time. "And second, the country's not full of a bunch of racist assholes anymore! Well, not as many, at least; hell, we've got a black President now!"

Comstock's eyes bulged; I thought he was gonna have an aneurism or something. "**What? Has the country of the Founding Fathers fallen so far? Very well; perhaps the Sodom Below will burn faster than anticipated.**"

With that, the projector cut out, and I _finally _reached the next floor. I have no idea what Comstock was talking about, but it was probably very bad, and I had a feeling that it was my fault. Well, the sooner I got Elizabeth out of this city, along with myself, the sooner I could tell someone about all of this; maybe something would get done.

I crossed into a part of the tower I was in that led to a gondola; that would take me to Monument Island. Apparently, the soldiers in this part of the tower had either not heard Comstock's order to stand down, or Comstock had rescinded that order. Still, I had plenty of bullets and fireballs, plus the occasional Possessed ally if things got too dicey.

After a brief firefight and spree of looting, I made my way to the gondola. The only other passenger was a nun.

"Easy," I spoke to her like she was a spooked animal, "I'm not gonna hurt you."

Oddly enough, she didn't seem worried; in fact, she barely even glanced at me. Shrugging, I moved to the controls, which seemed easy enough to understand. Just as I got the thing moving, an airship appeared to block my path. Standing on the edge of the thing was the asshole-in-chief, Comstock, holding a microphone.

For a brief moment, I hoped that the worst he was going to do was break out into karaoke.

"**The Lord forgives everything, but I'm just a Prophet… so I don't have to. Amen.**"

… That can't be good.

"Amen."

I swung around to see the nun, who'd poured oil on herself and the floor, hold a torch over her head, and then drop it. Both she and the airship burst into flames.

"Jesus!" I yelled in shock. I ran through the flames and headed out of the gondola; I noticed that I was fairly close to a sky-line, so I jumped.

Some people ask paratroopers and skydivers why they jump out of perfectly good airplanes; well, first off, the vessel I was on wasn't a plane. Second, it wasn't perfectly good, it was on fire!

Thankfully, I hooked onto the sky-line and sped away; I glanced behind me to see the airship I'd just gotten off of fall out of the sky and then explode.

Goddammit, why couldn't Comstock have just done karaoke?

…

After a bit of travel via sky-line, I finally made it to the gates of Monument Island. Those gates were locked and chained up, but there was a hook present for me to attach to. After swinging to the ground, I made my way to the giant angel-tower. Before I entered, I noticed a stature with scrolls carved out of stone. On the scrolls said "The Seed of the Prophet shall sit on the throne, and drown in flame, the mountains of man".

Good to know.

To say that it was strange would have been an understatement; imagine a cross between a 5-star hotel and a laboratory that a mad scientist would have in his dreams. I picked up a handful of silver eagles and a sandwich that looked pretty fresh, and made my way up the stairs.

Whoever had been here had left in a hurry; chairs were knocked over and stuff was strewn all over the floor. As I walked through a hallway, I flinched when sparks shot out of an exposed cable. I seriously doubt that that was supposed to happen. At the end of the hall was a blackboard, which showed a outline of a female body, from the ages of 1, then 5, then 11 and finally 18; I had a feeling that the outlines were of Elizabeth.

At the entrance to another hall was a warning sign, saying "Do Not Speak to the Specimen!". Okay, that made me a little pissed; they were referring to Elizabeth, a human being, as nothing more than a specimen? It was probably a good thing that I didn't run into anyone wearing a lab coat, because I'd probably set them on fire.

I sped through a room that had weird Tesla-coils, not wanting to get hit by giant bolts of electricity. I pushed my way through a set of doors, until I noticed a flickering light coming from the room on the right. Curiosity getting the better of me once again, I peered inside to see a movie being played. Sadly, it wasn't "Pacific Rim". Rather, it was footage of Elizabeth; apparently they'd been spying on her.

The video showed clips of her singing, painting, reading and going through thousands of combinations of numbers in order to crack the lock to a vault-style door. Wow, that was… dedicated. Apparently, she'd been trying to escape for a while, since the footage was from over a year ago.

I left the room and checked out the one across from it; it had a red glow emanating from inside. I noticed photos hanging from a string. I took a closer look at the pictures, then quickly backed off. No, the pictures weren't of dissected people or anything. They were pictures of Elizabeth in her bathroom… lacking any clothes.

It might have made rescuing, and probably traveling with, this girl awkward if I kept getting reminded that I'd seen her naked.

I rushed through a rather thick door and headed into another room with a trio of even bigger Tesla-coils, and another blackboard; this one showed a graph that was predicting Elizabeth's… something, it didn't say what, and her age. Where the line reached around 19, the words "Cannot be Contained" were scribbled.

Terrific.

I passed by another warning sign; this one said "Siphon is Dangerous While Leeching Specimen". What Siphon? And what exactly were they leeching from this girl? I hate getting questions instead of answers. Looking around, I noticed large devices that looked like subwoofers, but I had no idea what they were for.

As I entered another door, I saw one last warning sign, and this one kind of scared me. "168 hour Quarantine is in Effect". That's… a really long time, why did they need a quarantine? Was that why no one was here?

Through the door was an elevator, which I entered; thankfully, this one was a lot faster than the last one I was on. When I got off, I was in a room marked "Specimen Observation", and there was a single lever; shrugging, I pulled it. A panel opened, labeled "Specimen Tracking" and it showed a light next to the words "Dressing Room".

"Okay," I muttered to myself, "that's where I need to go."

I marched through another door and into another room. Like the first, there was a single lever, which I pulled. A metal shutter opened, and I saw her in person for the first time.

Elizabeth.

And holy shit, she looked exactly like Belle from "Beauty and the Beast"! No, I'm not kidding! I know that I had a picture of her, but that had been a black-and-white photo. Her face was similar to Belle's, she had the same brown hair that was tied up halfway, she had a white blouse and a blue skirt; the only thing different was the blue ascot she was wearing, but other than that, she was friggin' Belle!

Wait, does this make me Beast or Gaston?

Apparently, the glass that I was seeing her from was two-way, but she couldn't see me. I thought about knocking, but she wouldn't know what was going on; the poor girl might have a heart-attack.

Elizabeth, who'd been staring at a photo in her hands, dropped it and began to sing; apparently, I couldn't hear her anymore than she could hear me. I glanced at the photo she'd dropped; it was a picture of the Eiffel Tower. After practicing whatever song she'd been singing, she grabbed her hand and stared at it; I couldn't tell what was wrong, but something obviously bothered her. She shook her hand a few times, then grabbed the photo again and held it tightly to her chest and closed her eyes, as if in prayer. Then she ran off to another room and out of my sight.

It came to my attention that there must have been people watching her like this nearly all the time. That was… very creepy; the fact that it all seemed so analytical made it even more so. It was part creepy stalker, part mad scientist and all wrong. Now I was determined to get her out of here; no one deserves this for a life. Except maybe Comstock, but then again, he's a douche.

With a sigh, I exited to the next room and saw another Specimen Tracker; this one showed that Elizabeth was in the dining room. I followed the path to the next Observation Room and pulled the lever there. The shutter opened and I saw Elizabeth once again clutching at her right hand; what was up with that? Behind her was a painting of Paris, with the Eiffel Tower as the main focus. I recalled watching her paint that when I watched that clip show.

I watched Elizabeth walk up to the painting and place her hands against it; it looked like she was going tear it in half. I thought that was a shame; while I freely admit that I have no taste in art, I thought that her painting was pretty good.

However, instead of ripping the painting, Elizabeth seemed to rip the very _air_. A hazy hole appeared in front of her, and with visible effort, she tore it wide enough that she could walk through it. On the other side of the hole was a movie theater, with the words "La Revanche Du Jedi" on it. Then a fire truck sped towards the hole and, in a panic, Elizabeth made a closing motion with her hands. With that, the hole disappeared.

What… the… fuck?

Okay, I might not know a lot of French, but I could translate that, it meant "Revenge of the Jedi". I also know my movies; before it got changed to "Return of the Jedi", the movie played as the original name in several countries. But… that had been in 1983. And if this… portal… opened up to Paris in 1983…

Oh my God. Somehow, this girl could open up a hole through space and time! Then another thing hit me; Comstock's words about how they'd brought me here, and how everyone said it was 1912…

Oh shit, had I been brought back in time!? If so, how was I going to get back? After I spent a couple of minutes calming myself down, I thought about the Lutece twins; they somehow knew that I wasn't from this time period. Maybe they knew how to get me back, and the only way that could happen was with Elizabeth! I was grasping at straws at this point, but that half-assed idea was all I had.

I looked up at the window to see Elizabeth, but apparently she'd left during my brief freak-out. I headed to the next room, hoping to find a place to actually talk to her.

"I've got a bad feeling about this." Yeah, I quoted "Star Wars", you want to make something of it?

I reached the next Observation Room and pulled the lever. Inside this room was a huge library; there must have been thousands of books, yet I had a sneaking suspicion that Elizabeth had read them all. Elizabeth herself was staring out a window, which seemed like a poor design choice if you want to lock someone up Rapunzel-style; after all, showing what's outside the tower gives someone a goal to escape to.

I had to push open the next door, and for good reason; the wind was blowing, and I was marching outside the fucking tower!

"Holy shit!" I said to no one in particular, "All right, I can do this."

I walked up the shoulder of the angel, and then into her cheek. After forcing my way through yet another damn door, I found myself on top of a platform supported by chains. I tried to walk across it, but after a straining noise, the chains snapped, and I plummeted to the ground. Luckily, I caught myself on a wooden railing.

… And found myself face-to-face with Elizabeth.

I waved weakly. "Uh, hi there."

She screamed, which was kind of justified; after all, I _did_ just break her ceiling. However, she startled me enough that I let go of the railing and landed on my back.

"Ow…" That had hurt.

What also hurt was the book that hit me in the face. Then another. And another. As I got up, I saw Elizabeth chucking yet more books at me, and I raised my arms as a shield.

"Would you-ow! Would you stop that?" I yelled, "I'm not here to hurt you."

Elizabeth ran up to me with another book in her hands; I absently noted that it was a book on quantum mechanics.

"Who are you?" she demanded. I noticed that she had a nice voice.

"My name is DeWitt." I have a habit of introducing myself last-name first; one too many Bond movies, I guess. "I'm a friend. I've come to get you out of here." As I reached for her shoulder, I saw that she was at least a good six inches shorter than me. Which placed her at around 5'2".

"Get away!" she yanked her shoulder out of my grip and prepared to swing her book at me.

Not wanting to get hit again, I caught her hands in mine. After a moment, she calmed down, looked into my eyes and reached out, as if to touch my face. Then I saw why she'd been clutching at her hand before; her right pinkie was gone, save for a stump, which was covered by a silver thimble.

"Are you… real?" she asked, as if afraid of the answer.

I gave her a smile. "I'm real enough."

Before either of us could say more, a strange, whistling tune came out of a gold statue nearby. Whatever it meant, Elizabeth was terrified of it.

"He's coming!" she whispered in a panicked voice, as she began to push me back, "Y-you have to go!"

"Why?" I mean, if it was one guy, I was pretty sure that I could take him.

"You don't want to be here when he arrives." A half-clank, half-whistle came from above us, and Elizabeth tilted her head up. "JUST A MINUTE! I'M GETTING DRESSED!"

"Okay, we need to get out of here."

Elizabeth looked around in a panic, probably trying to look for a place to hide me. "There's no way out; trust me, I've looked." The weird call came from above again. "STOP IT! Y-YOU'RE TOO IMPATIENT!"

Okay, so she didn't know a way out, and the way I came was a no-go, since whatever was scaring the crap out of Elizabeth was there. That left only the door, and that was locked…

Wait a second. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the key that Rosalind had given me a while back; I showed it to Elizabeth.

"Uh, what about this?"

"What about it?" demanded Elizabeth, barely looking at it.

"I think it's the key to the door."

Elizabeth froze. Her eyes darted between my face and the key, before lunging forward like a starved animal.

"Give it to me!" she snatched it from my hand, stared at it, then spun it around in her fingers.

I swear, if she started calling it "the Precious"…

Without a glance at me, she rushed to the door and put the key into the lock. Actually, that made me ask…

"Why put a lock on the inside? Wouldn't it make more sense to put it on the outside, so that something like this doesn't happen?"

Elizabeth glanced at me with a raised eyebrow. "I don't think anyone expected a man to fall from the ceiling with the key needed to facilitate my escape."

I shrugged. "Point taken."

The door was massive, built like a bank vault; when the key unlocked it, I could hear spinning gears and other assorted mechanical devices. After a moment, the door opened. I figured that Elizabeth would be hesitant to take that first step into the outside world; instead, she bolted through the door before it was fully open. I, having more mass than her, had to wait for a moment. When I got through the door, I heard Elizabeth shout.

"Come on, this way!"

I would have asked how she knew the way out, considering it didn't look like she'd ever left that cage, but before I could, the entire tower rocked. It felt like an angry god had decided to punch the place. I caught up to Elizabeth just as the tower shook again.

"It's his job to keep me locked up in here!" she said in response to my unasked question.

"We'll see about that!" I said with more bravery than I felt; after all, this guy, whoever he was, was able to smack around a giant building.

As the tower shook again, Elizabeth asked, "Who are you? Why did you come here?"

Another impact against the tower knocked us off our feet; I got up first and offered a hand to Elizabeth, who accepted the help.

"Maybe you should ask questions when no one is trying to bury us?" I offered.

She nodded. "Point taken."

I couldn't help but smile at her echo of my words as we continued to run. Elizabeth turned a corner and I followed, but as she crossed a catwalk, another blow to the tower knocked me off my feet again. I looked at the wall and saw _something _carve three very big slices into the metal wall.

Remember when I said that I could take this guy? I changed my mind.

I tried to catch up to Elizabeth, but a steel girder hit the area between us, leaving a large gap. Elizabeth turned to look at me.

"Come on!" she yelled.

Easy for you to say, you don't have a giant hole to jump across.

I took a few steps back, then made a running leap. I almost made it; my hands grabbed the edge of the catwalk, and I started to slip, before Elizabeth caught one of my hands and helped me up. I took a second to catch my breath, then we were off again. We eventually made our way back to the elevator that I'd arrived in.

"Call the elevator!" I shouted, since Elizabeth was in front of me.

"What?" asked Elizabeth, as if she'd never seen a… oh, right.

"Press the button!" I yelled.

As we waited for the elevator, Elizabeth looked behind her, and her eyes widened in shock; I don't know why, the only thing behind us was the window… showing… her room. Oh.

"What is all this?" she asked, as if I had the answers, "They were watching me? All this time… why?" she turned to me. "Why did they put me here? What am I? WHAT AM I!?"

_How the fuck should I know? _I wanted to ask, but that probably wouldn't have helped. Instead, I said, "You're the girl who's getting out of this tower."

Before I could say more, a massive fist crashed through the wall, the shockwave knocking us onto the ground. Atop the giant fist were three claws. When the fist withdrew, I saw the face of its owner. It was vaguely bird-shaped, wrapped in some sort of thick leather, and had glowing, orange eyes that were covered in glass lenses. And its eyes were staring at me.

I think I found out who the Beast was.

I pulled out my pistol and shot a few rounds at one eye, hoping to blind it, but I think all I did was piss it off. Elizabeth screamed as it began to force its way into the small hole it had made. I pulled out my machine gun, hoping that the bigger gun might do something. Before I pulled the trigger, we heard a ding.

The three of us stared at the elevator button for a second, before said elevator slammed into the monster from above, sending it hurtling to the lower levels. Elizabeth and I moved cautiously to the edge of the elevator and looked down. I gave a wow-look-we-just-survived-that laugh and turned to Elizabeth.

"He fall down, go boom." I know, I am at the pinnacle of sophistication.

Elizabeth seemed to share my sentiments, because she gave the same laugh. "Yes, he did; now let's get out of here before he comes back."

I nodded, and we jumped to the other side and rushed to the door. We didn't get more than a few feet before the tower started shaking again.

"We have to get out of here!" said Elizabeth, "He's tearing the building apart!"

Jesus, what did it take to kill that thing?

I saw a piece of debris falling, and pulled her out of the way. "Be careful, Elizabeth!"

She turned to me. "How do you know my name?"

"Not the time, lady!" we resumed our sprint.

Elizabeth tried to open the next door, but it wouldn't budge. I braced myself against it, and motioned for her to do the same.

"Push!" with a grunt of effort from both of us, we shoved open the door. I held it open for Elizabeth to go first, then followed her.

"Which way do we go?" she asked.

"Up!" I shouted. No, I had no idea why.

As we ran, I caught sight of a large creature with bat-like wings fly by. Goddammit, how had that thing gotten free so quickly? We reached the top of the tower, but we had nowhere to go. Before either of us could say or do anything, the entire section of the tower ripped away, sending us hurtling into the open air! We both screamed as we fell; Elizabeth reached out and grabbed my right hand and I pulled her in close.

Shut up, it's not what you think; I thought we were going to die.

Anyway, I looked down and saw a sky-line directly below us; I quickly pulled out my Skyhook and latched on. The impact nearly ripped my arm out of its socket, but since the alternative was death, I considered it a small price to pay. We sped down the sky-line, Elizabeth clinging to my arm for dear life.

I saw the creature zoom in front of us, destroying two airships that happened to be in its path. I guess the only thing it cared about was getting Elizabeth back. As we kept going, we got a good view of the tower; right before our eyes, the head, torso, left arm and wing separated from the rest of the structure and fell below the clouds.

Damn. Talk about redecorating.

For a minute, I thought we'd be home free; unfortunately, that goddamn bird-thing threw an entire airship at the bridge next to us, destroying it and cutting off our sky-line. We fell through the air.

I reached out to grab Elizabeth again; our fingers touched briefly, but she spun away from me and I lost sight of her. I looked down to see another "Island", this one having a large body of water and a beach. And I was headed straight for the water.

Have you ever done a belly-flop? It stings, right? Well, imagine doing that from a hundred feet up; it felt like hitting a steel wall. I have no idea how I didn't die immediately, but I survived, and began sinking below the water, pieces of bridge and sky-line raining down around me.

I didn't have long to ponder my latest predicament, because after only a second, that damn bird-thing showed up. _Under _the fucking water. Geez, this guy was persistent. I guess his own desire to kill me was his downfall, because a chunk of debris hit his back. Still, he reached out to crush me, but before he did, one of his eye-plates cracked, and what looked like blood oozed out.

The last thing I saw was the creature swimming away before darkness claimed me.

**Wow. I really hated Songbird. I also really hate Comstock, the people who locked up Elizabeth and… actually, you know what? I hate everyone in Columbia. That place sucks! I do, however, like the combat in this game; if you play smart, you can actually be as effective as the Booker in this fic.**

**Like I said in the first chapter, Booker and Elizabeth are NOT related, and I will make a relationship happen. I do this because it's fun.**

**Peace out, muffin be praised.**


	4. Chapter 4

**BIOSHOCK INFINITE DOES NOT BELONG TO ME. BUT I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO SING "BEYOND THE SEA" EVERY TIME I PLAY THE ORIGINAL GAME.**

**Ah, Booker. One of these days he's going to realize that his life sucks so much that he might as well have let that priest in the beginning of the game drown him. But that would have been a very boring game, and a waste of 60 bucks.**

**Although, in retrospect, this version of Booker isn't doing much better; falling out of the sky and hitting a body of water while being chased by Songbird will tend to ruin a guy's day.**

Bioshock Infinite

Chapter 4

Trust-Building Exercises

I'm just going to say right now, that I do not like pain. I've been through enough of it in my life to know; hell, I've been through enough of it in the last 24 hours to know that. But at least one good thing came from the current pain I was in: it let me know that I was still alive. Now, if only whatever was hitting my chest would stop…

I slowly opened my eyes, trying to figure out what was going on; at first, all I saw was the sky, starting to change from blue to pink. I guess it was getting to the evening. Then I turned my head to the left and saw…

"Belle?"

The Disney Princess shook her head. "No, it's me, Elizabeth. Are you all right?"

Oh, right, now I remember; the plane, the crash, the crazy-ass city and its even crazier-ass citizens, the killer bird-thing… See, now _that's _a flashback!

"Where am I?"

"Back in the land of the living." She told me. "Now, are you feeling better?"

"No, but I will be," I said after a moment, "as soon as whatever was pushing my chest goes away."

"Oh, sorry," she said, "that was me; I was trying to get air in your lungs again."

Right; I was drowning. Kind of forgot about that last part. I struggled to get up, Elizabeth patting my back as I coughed; I looked around and saw that we were on a beach. Wow; a floating "island" that had its own beach. I think I dreamed of something like this when I was a kid; if I could go back in time, I'd find that younger me and smack him upside the head for that.

Then it hit me; I _did _go back in time. I was in fucking 1912!

"Are you sure you're all right?" asked Elizabeth, "You just went very pale."

Okay, slight problem; how was I going to tell her that I was from 101 years in the future? As I was pondering that, Elizabeth stood up, which turned out badly for me, since she'd been supporting me; and that meant that I hit the sand again. Ow.

"Oh, sorry, Mr. DeWitt!" she said, "It's just that I heard music, and I…"

Right, she'd probably never been exposed to music much while in that tower. I waved my hand at her.

"Go, enjoy." I cracked the tendons in my neck and stretched my legs. "I'll join you in a minute, just let me rest."

She gave me a smile of thanks and backed up. "All right, I'll be right back, Mr. DeWitt!" Then she was gone.

After a couple of minutes of just lying there, I finally stood up; I was a mess, or at least the inside of my body was. Thanks to my MRF, my clothes and skin were cleaned of saltwater and sand. The only thing that had changed about my outfit was a few small holes. Great; at this rate, I'll need some new duds before long.

After another stretch, I followed the sound of music, using some closed-down shops as a support. Oddly, I found a few silver eagles on the countertops. No idea why they were there, but I didn't complain. Well, at least about the money; I was plenty ready to complain about the fact that I felt like that slab of meat that Rocky punched.

Eventually, I made my way to a pier, where I found Elizabeth dancing to the tune provided by a trio of musicians. Some other people were dancing too, but they were all in pairs; Elizabeth was dancing alone.

"Hey, Elizabeth!" the girl turned at my shout.

"Hello!"She gave me the biggest smile I'd ever seen. "Oh, this is amazing, Mr. Dewitt! Come dance with me!" she held out her hands toward me.

Okay, show of hands; guys, how many of you have had a beautiful woman actually ask _you _to dance with _her_? That's right, few to none. Now, I try to be a gentleman, I really do; so I took her up on the offer, grabbed her hands in mine, and spent a couple of minutes spinning around the pier. I know that I felt absolutely shitty at that point, but hey, chances like that don't come along every day.

After a while, I decided that we should get moving. "Come on, Elizabeth," I said, "I think we should go."

"Go? Go where?" she asked, "What could be better than this?"

Um, how about anywhere that doesn't have killer sky-racists and bird-monsters? Okay, that would have been a dick thing to say, so I took about half a second to think about it. We needed to leave so that I could get to my own time (hopefully), but the Lutece twins had only told me to help Elizabeth; I guess that meant just help her get to where she wanted to go. And from what I saw in Elizabeth's tower…

"How about Paris?"

Her eyes went wide. "Paris? I-I don't understand; how would we get there?"

I looked up, just in time to see a large airship, which I saw was called the "First Lady Airship", float by.

"Well, we could always borrow an airship to England and take a boat-ride over," I suggested; after all, we _were _over the Atlantic, "but if you want to stay here and dance…"

"No! Let's go!" she grabbed my hand and dragged me off, "Come on, let's go right now!"

"Ow!" Okay, I still felt like roadkill. "Easy, Elizabeth! I just fell God-only-knows-how-many feet a little while ago!"

Elizabeth stopped and looked down, ashamed. "Oh, I am so sorry, Mr. DeWitt, I guess in my excitement…"

"Booker." I interrupted.

"What?"

"Call me Booker," I told her, "I never liked being called Mr. DeWitt." I got enough of that at my parents' funeral, thank you very much.

"All right; Booker it is then." She pulled me to a nearby building, this time with much more gentleness.

"So…" I asked after a minute, "how come you're not in as much pain as I am?"

Elizabeth shrugged. "I don't know; all I remember is waking up in the water, seeing you floating there and pulling you to shore."

"I didn't realize that you learned to swim while locked in that tower."

"I never actually swam," she admitted, "but I read on swimming techniques, so I used that."

"I didn't realize they made whole books on how to swim; pamphlets, maybe, but whole books…" I laughed a little, but that hurt my ribs.

"We need to get you fixed up." Declared Elizabeth, as we walked inside.

We saw a vending machine, but there wasn't anything that could help me; I leaned against a trunk with a sigh. Apparently, the thing wasn't locked, and the top slid off; curiosity getting the better of me, I looked inside and, to my pleasant surprise, found another trio of Lutece Infusions.

"Well, this just got easier." Elizabeth looked over at me when I made my comment, but she looked uneasy.

"Should you be taking that?" she asked, "I mean, those belong to someone."

"First," I said, "this is an emergency; I could have fractured bones or something, and the health Infusion should fix me right up. Second, if they didn't want to have their stuff taken, they should've locked the trunk." Before Elizabeth could say anything, I drank the Infusions; I could feel myself getting better as I drank the red one.

"Ah, much better." As if to prove my point, I jogged in place for a few seconds.

Elizabeth gave a small smile. "Well, I might not approve of the means, but I am glad that you're doing better."

As I stretched again, I noticed a lack of weight on my back and realized that my machine gun was gone. Damn, I liked that gun; I had named it Steve. Oh well, I still had my pistol and my Vigors, so I wasn't helpless.

I marched toward a door, but froze as a new song began to play; the music was so familiar… oh my God. I slowly turned back.

"What is it?" asked Elizabeth.

"That song…"

"What about it?"

"They changed the melody a little, but I know that song! That's 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun'!"

"So?" Then I remembered that Elizabeth probably didn't know about the time-travel stuff.

"Okay, um, why don't I tell you later, when we're on our way to Paris?" It would probably take too long to explain here.

Elizabeth shrugged and walked through a turnstile and into the building; I was right behind her. It turned out that the building was actually a gift-shop; there was plenty of stuff, but all of it was related to Comstock in some way. Elizabeth walked up to a poster of that bastard and stared at it.

"Comstock," she said slowly, "I've read about him; they say he can see the future."

Bullshit, I wanted to say, but I saw the shop owner nearby, and I didn't want to start anything if I could avoid it. I walked up beside Elizabeth.

"If you give a man a little power, he falls into all kinds of love with himself." I muttered into her ear. Also, if you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to want some milk, but that's neither here nor there.

"I don't like his look." Said Elizabeth, a little too loudly for my taste.

"Do you dislike the look of the Prophet?" asked the shopkeeper, "Or his gaze?"

Thinking quickly, I wrapped my arm around Elizabeth's shoulders and began to lead her to the exit. "No, it's not that," I lied, "It's just that it's not his best picture."

As we left, Elizabeth whispered to me, "Booker, why did you lie?"

"Because," I whispered back, "these people worship this guy; never talk down about a religious figure when you're surrounded by zealots."

If I wasn't careful, this girl's naiveté was going to get me killed.

As we went up the stairs and past a row of booths, I spotted two familiar faces. Both Rosalind and Robert Lutece stood in front of us; Rosalind gave me a small smile, while Robert gave me a nod.

"Hello again, Mr. DeWitt," said Rosalind, "how have you been?"

"Oh, you know, the usual." I said, while Elizabeth looked from them to me, very confused. "Got chased by crazy people, climbed some buildings, survived a hundred-foot drop; nothing out of the ordinary."

"Booker," said Elizabeth, "do you know these people?"

"Oh yeah," I said, "this is Rosalind and Robert; twins, this is Elizabeth." The two nodded at Elizabeth, who returned the gesture.

"Now," said Rosalind, "on to business. We have something to give you."

"Let me guess," I said, "you're going to give me something that will help me, but also has a chance of killing me?"

"Not for you," corrected Robert, "but for the lady." The two then pulled out two small boxes, like the kind you put jewelry in.

Inside each was a choker with a pendant on it; one had a silhouette of a cage, while the other had a bird. It reminded me of the key that had opened Elizabeth's door.

"Choose one," said Rosalind, "the bird…"

"Or the cage?" Finished her brother.

"What? No red pill and blue pill?" I joked, but while Elizabeth looked at me, confused, the twins simply ignored me.

Elizabeth turned back to the jewelry, looking from one to the other before turning to me. "They're both so beautiful," she said, "which do you think I should pick?"

Why was she asking me? The closest I ever came to deciding anything regarding jewelry was when I was selling Mom's heirlooms after she died; I didn't have any other relatives, and I didn't want the stuff.

First, I looked at the bird; it was flying and free, something that I'm sure Elizabeth would appreciate. However, it reminded me of that killer bird-thing, and it might do the same to her. On the other hand, the cage looked strong and protective, but it might remind her of her life in that gilded prison. Finally, I decided.

"Go for the bird, Elizabeth; it's free, and so are you."

Elizabeth smiled and reached for the choker, while the Lutece twins nodded in approval. As Elizabeth was putting on the choker, I leaned towards the twins.

"You and I need to have a talk regarding time-travel." I whispered. The siblings looked at each other for a moment, then back at me.

"You will find the answers along the journey, Mr. DeWitt," said Rosalind, "we can only help you along the way."

I was going to say that they could help me by giving me some goddamn answers, but Elizabeth grabbed my attention.

"Booker, look!"

I tore my gaze from the twins and followed her pointing finger. Monument Island emerged from the clouds, and we could see just how mangled it was.

"Oh my God." Whispered Elizabeth.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"It was my home."

Before I could say anything, I heard screams; I shoved my right hand into my pocket, thinking someone might have seen the scar. It turned out that people were horrified that the home of the "Lamb" had been destroyed. Many were saying that it was the work of someone called "Fitzroy". I learned later that Fitzroy was the leader of a group of revolutionaries called the Vox Populi. They fought for equal rights, which was a cause that I could normally get behind, but in Columbia, shit often turned for the worse.

"Let's go," I said, pulling Elizabeth away by her hand. As we walked, I noticed that the Lutece twins were gone. That trick was starting to get old.

…

As we made our way to the airship station, we found our way blocked by a police checkpoint in front of an arcade; apparently, the only way to get to the station was through that arcade, and I knew for damn sure that I wasn't going to make it through. Elizabeth didn't know that I was Public Enemy Number 1, at least not yet, but she was impatient to get through, and there was a long line.

"I have an idea," she said, "come on!" Then she looked down. "You can let go of my hand now."

Whoops. Totally forgot that I hadn't let go of her since I'd dragged her off. I let go and followed after her, not saying a word. We went to the side of the checkpoint, but the door had a padlock on it.

"Now what do we do?" I asked her. She said nothing, instead pulling out a hairpin and putting it into the lock. "What are you doing?" I hissed.

"You're a roguish type, what does it look like?"

Okay, that kind of hurt; yeah, I've developed a bit of kleptomania since coming here, and yeah, I've killed dozens of people in the last 24 hours, not that she knew about that part, but that doesn't make me a… okay, maybe it does. But it still hurt, damn it!

"Done!" whispered Elizabeth, as the lock fell to the ground. Damn, that only took about 6 seconds; I can't pick a lock at all, so I was doubly impressed!

"Where did you learn to pick locks?" I asked quietly; maybe she wasn't so naïve after all.

"I was trapped in a tower with nothing but books and spare time," Elizabeth said, "you would be surprised at what I know how to do."

"Lock-picking, swimming and quantum mechanics," I commented dryly, "that's a pretty wide area of study."

"How did you know about quantum mechanics?" Elizabeth asked, surprised.

"When I showed up, you were trying to hit me with a book on the subject."

"Oh." Elizabeth's face reddened. "I am sorry about that."

I shrugged. "No big deal." I swiped some silver eagles off a desk, and we walked on. We marched up a flight of stairs, making sure not to make eye contact with a worker in the area. As we entered another hallway, Elizabeth stopped me.

"Booker, I found these silver eagles." She tossed a handful of coins to me. "Any extra money might come in handy, so I'll keep an eye out."

"Great job, Elizabeth, thanks." I pocketed the cash and moved on; I noticed Elizabeth smiling brightly at the compliment. Now that I think about it, it was probably the first one she'd ever received.

As we walked on, I noticed a man and a woman wrapped in each other's arms; what was odd, for this racist, asshole-filled city, anyway, was that the man was white and the woman was black. They also looked really familiar. As we moved past them, the man stopped me.

"Thank you, friend."

"Uh, sorry, do I know you?" I swear I'd seen them before, which annoyed me, because I have a pretty good memory.

"You saved our lives at the raffle, sir." Said the woman. Oh, right, when those pricks wanted me to stone them. They must have gotten away when I started, you know, killing people.

"Oh, well, it was no trouble," I said, a little embarrassed, "but I'm glad that you two are all right."

"Daisy always said that someone like you would come along." Said the woman, as she pressed a handful of silver eagles into my hand.

"You keep the money," I said, handing it back to her; I had plenty more places to loot from, after all, "you need it more than I do."

As the couple walked away, I noticed Elizabeth smiling at me. "What?"

"You saved their lives?"

"Yeah, why?" what was she getting at?

"Nothing," she said, still smiling, "I'm just proud to be traveling with someone as good-hearted as you."

"And I'm glad to be traveling with a nice girl like you," I replied with a smile of my own.

Elizabeth turned her nose up and spoke in a mock-serious tone. "I am not a child, Booker; I turned nineteen two months ago."

"Ah, then that makes you older than me," I said, trying my best to sound like a fancy-shmancy upper-class guy, "for I will _turn_ nineteen in _five _months."

Elizabeth blinked. "You're actually younger than I am? I'm surprised; you hold yourself like a more experienced man."

"I've been through a lot." I said as I opened the next door.

…

The next room was filled with old-fashioned games, bright lights and loud noises; not as loud as some of the firefights I'd been through, but loud enough for me to know that I'd be getting a migraine if we didn't get out of here soon.

"Oh! What's that?" asked Elizabeth as she approached a cotton-candy vendor. Seeing as how she'd never tasted, or even seen, cotton candy before, I slipped her a silver eagle so that she could buy one.

As she ate, I kept a wary eye out for anyone who might try to kill me; so far, it had been going well, but I just knew that something was going go wrong. Maybe I was just being paranoid, but I kept my hand near the pistol in my jacket, just in case.

As we reached the last turnstile, which led to the airship station, a woman stepped in front of Elizabeth.

"Annabelle?" she asked.

"Excuse me?" Elizabeth was confused.

"Annabelle," said the woman, as if she were talking to a child, "it's me, Esther!"

"Oh, no, I'm not Annabelle," said Elizabeth.

"Are you sure?" Esther asked.

Christ, lady, I think she'd know if her name was Annabelle or not.

"My name is Elizabeth, do I know you?"

Doubtful, you've been in a tower your whole life.

"Elizabeth? Well, isn't that a lovely name?" Esther said condescendingly as she walked off.

Okay, Esther, I don't know you, but you've just attained the title of bitch. Thank you for leaving.

"That was odd." Commented Elizabeth. I said nothing, but I tensed as alarm-bells began ringing in my brain. I don't know, maybe my Spider-sense was tingling.

We passed through the turnstile, keeping a distance from Esther, as a cop nearby announced that the building was closing soon. That meant that we didn't have much time to steal that airship. The area that led to the airships was about half-full of people, but they didn't seem in a hurry, despite the fact that the area was closing. I walked up to the ticket-guy and rang the bell. He was on the phone, so I glanced around. Apparently, we would have to take a gondola to the First Lady Airship; then we'd be able to steal it.

"Um, two tickets to the First Lady Airship." I said, trying to get the guy's attention.

The guy barely looked at me. "Yeah, just a minute, friend." He turned back to the phone. "Yeah, I have it; how do you want to proceed?"

Kind of weird, but I wanted to leave ASAP. "In a bit of a rush, pal."

"Hey, mister!" came Elizabeth's voice, "You're going to get mustard on your nice suit!" Normally, I'd say it was good for Elizabeth to help someone, but those alarm-bells were still going off.

"Uh-huh," said the ticket-seller, "I got it; I'll ring you back once the matter's in hand. Send in the bird, we're ready to execute." I started to get nervous…

"Let go of me!"

I turned at the sound of Elizabeth's voice; that distraction was all the guy needed to take out a knife and plunge it into my hand.

Oh God! I let out a scream of agony; that fucker had impaled my right hand to the counter! He started to pull out a gun to finish the job, but I was faster, drilling the bastard between the eyes with my pistol. I clenched my teeth and yanked out the knife. I spun around to see a man grabbing Elizabeth by the arm; I shot him twice in the head. Elizabeth screamed and ran out of the room, while every other occupant pulled out a gun.

Oh, fuck my life.

I dove behind a pillar, a few bullets taking a chunk out of my shield. As I waited for it to recharge, I flexed my right hand; the knife had gone straight through the center of the x-shaped scar and out the other side, but I could still move the fingers, even if it hurt like a bitch. I grabbed my pistol with my right hand and began firing, ignoring the pain. I sent a flock of crows to give me some cover, then Possessed another guy. One of my attackers dropped a machine gun, which I happily picked up.

I shall call it Gunny and it shall be mine and it shall be my Gunny.

I fired a few bursts, then watched as my Possession wore off, and the poor sap blew his head off with… wait a second, was that…? Oh my God, it was a shotgun! I slung my machine gun over my shoulder and grabbed the shotgun.

"Say hello to my little friend!" I yelled as I blasted a fist-sized hole into a man.

Hell-fucking-yeah. Sure, the shotgun had some serious kick, but the damage it dealt was _so _worth it. With my upgraded shield, I was able to get in pretty close without worry. Soon, all but one of the assholes were dead; that last one turned out to be Esther, who held a shotgun of her own.

"Die, False Shepherd!" she yelled, firing.

Ouch; the shotgun was pretty powerful, nearly breaking my shield. No, I don't know how I knew the strength of my shield, I just did. Anyway, since I was tired of that bitch, I sent a flock of crows her way, which distracted her long enough for me to walk up to her, reach out with my Skyhook, and snap her neck.

She wasn't worth the bullet.

After the screams of pain and echoes of gunshots faded, I searched the bodies, finding a surprising amount of money, salts and ammo; these guys had been well-prepared. After making sure that no one else was around, I went looking for Elizabeth.

She actually didn't get far; she was at another entrance to the room. I think what hurt most was how she looked at me with so much fear and… disgust.

"Elizabeth…" I started to say.

"Stay away from me!" she slammed down a gate and ran off.

I didn't have time to chase after her, because a whistle started to blow, and another gate opened, revealing a pack of cops.

"Stay where you are!" shouted one.

Yeah, right, I'll do just that. I leveled my new toy and smashed my way through them. Some of my shots killed two at a time. I think I was starting to like this shotgun. Once they were dead, I went through the gate that they'd so kindly left open.

I searched every room, finding nothing but some money and ammunition. One somewhat pleasant surprise was that I found another trio of Lutece Infusions, which I drank while searching; the red one actually helped heal my hand, though not completely. More importantly, however, I didn't find Elizabeth.

I eventually found her, trying to operate a gondola. I could hear her breath hitching in panic; that probably wasn't a good sign, she might be going into shock or something.

"Just hang on a second!" I yelled.

"Get away from me!"

What happened to us being friends?

As I entered the room that started the gondola, I found Elizabeth struggling to pull the lever. When she saw me, she withdrew into a corner, like a frightened animal. Like I didn't feel bad before.

Without a word, I pulled the lever, starting the gondola; Elizabeth turned her back to me, staring out the window.

"You killed those people," she muttered, "I can't believe you did that, they're all… they're all dead." She whirled to face me, anger on her face. "You killed those people!"

I tried to defend my actions; I mean, sure, I'd run my mouth off a bit, but that's what I did when I was stressed. "Elizabeth, I…"

She shoved me away from her, then turned around again. "You're a monster!"

Ouch. Okay, time for a wake-up call.

"What did you think was gonna happen, huh?"

"What?" Elizabeth didn't seem to grasp just how much resources went into her.

"Do you understand the expense that those people went through to keep you locked up in that tower? You think people like that are just going to let you walk away?" This next part was going to hurt, but it needed to be said. "You are an _investment_. And you will not be safe until you are far away from here."

Elizabeth finally turned back to me. "What… what do they want from me?"

"I don't know," I admitted, "but since coming to this city, I've learned that you've got to shoot first, or you won't get a chance to shoot at all."

Elizabeth sniffed and wiped away a few tears; I leaned against the side of the gondola, adrenaline starting to wear off. I hissed in pain when I accidentally put pressure on my right hand.

"Oh God, Booker! Your hand!"

"It's better than it was before." I said, even while I was clutching at it. I heard a tearing noise and saw that Elizabeth had ripped off the last couple of inches of her skirt. Using the strip as a bandage, she wrapped it around my hand to prevent any more bleeding. I flexed the fingers a few times; I could still use the hand, which was good, since I'm right-handed.

"What happened back there…" Elizabeth began, "That wasn't the last of it, was it?"

"I wish; people have been trying to kill me all damn day."

For a few minutes, we stood in silence, waiting for the gondola to reach its destination. When it did, I held out my left hand.

"Whaddya say?" I asked, "Want to get going?"

Wiping away a few more tears, Elizabeth shook my hand, and we headed off.

**Ah, Elizabeth; you get my vote for best escorted character ever. After all, she finds you money and ammo, keeps you alive and is generally a likeable character. And yes, I changed her age a little bit; she's only about 7 months older than Booker, making a relationship entirely plausible. Heck, I could have kept her at the same age she was in the game, but I decided to turn back the clock a little bit.**

**You should know that from now on, a lot of Booker's comments will be made out loud, not just in his head; after all, now he has someone to talk to.**

**I'm considering giving Elizabeth the powers she had in the demo; you know, letting her make tornadoes and stuff. Let me know if you think it's a good idea.**

**Elizabeth: Booker, are you afraid of God?**

**Booker: No, but I am afraid of muffins.**


	5. Chapter 5

**BIOSHOCK INFINITE DOES NOT BELONG TO ME. IF IT DID, THEN THERE WOULDN'T BE A BIG DADDY AND A HANDYMAN GIVING ME DEATH-GLARES.**

**I know it's a game, but I really have to suspend my disbelief sometimes; after all, hundreds of people are trying to kill Booker, but he just walks through them like they're nothing. Considering he's an older guy with SERIOUS PTSD, that's saying something.**

Bioshock Infinite

Hell in Heaven

Chapter 5

I Hate My Job

As we stepped off the gondola, I kept an eye out for anyone who might want to kill us, my machine gun at the ready. Of course, because I _was_ ready, there wasn't anyone there. Just my luck. As Elizabeth and I picked some silver eagles off of the ground, she tried to make conversation.

"You know, I have read a thing or two about medicine; I'll do my best to keep you supplied with remedies, and keep you on this side of the abyss."

"Thanks," I said, "crossing over to the other side of that abyss really isn't on my to-do list."

Elizabeth smiled, even as she reached under a chair to find…

"What the hell?" I asked. "Who leaves a shotgun out in the open like that?"

Elizabeth shrugged. "I don't know; but at least you have more ammunition, right?"

As I took the shotgun from her and emptied it of its ammo, Elizabeth looked down at her hands and frowned.

"What's wrong?"

She looked up at me. "Searching under chairs and such is not doing much for my sleeves."

Sure enough, the edges of her sleeves were a little frayed; I guess her clothes weren't built for rummaging around for stuff.

"Why don't you just roll 'em up?" I offered; it seemed obvious to me, anyway. I'd done the same thing with my jacket; the sleeves kept catching on my guns, and I worried about setting them on fire with my Vigor.

Elizabeth followed my advice, pushing up her sleeves so that they ended just past her elbows; it was both stylish and practical.

"Shall we continue?" she asked.

We headed upstairs and into a building called "Soldier's Field". It was filled with patriotic stuff, like American flags and Bald Eagles. I found that odd, considering Columbia hated America. Ignoring the annoying music spouting from the speakers, Elizabeth and I looked around.

I found a vending machine called a "Minuteman Armory" that somehow upgraded weapons; I guess if soldiers had enough money, they could make themselves more effective, or something. I Possessed it to give me a discount, then checked it out. The only thing I saw was an upgrade to my machine gun, which increased its damage output by…

Holy crap, 25%! I bought that without a second thought. This meant that I could kill people faster, thus saving me ammo.

… Wow, did I really just think that? God, I hate this city.

Thankfully, Elizabeth found something to distract me from my disturbing thoughts. "Soldier's Field, built in nineteen-oh-three by the hand of the Prophet."

Considering that the area had rides and games, that was kind of confusing. "Why would a prophet want to build an amusement park?"

"The place is themed to acquaint children with national service."

"You mean, join the army?"

" 'Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it'." I could tell that Elizabeth was quoting something; she had a far-off look, like she was reading off of a page in the distance.

"So, this place is basically a brainwashing camp." I surmised, "Like I didn't hate this place enough; can we leave now? Please?"

However, I got distracted when Elizabeth made a sharp turn. "Booker, this door has a lock on it."

"And if it's locked, there might be something valuable inside," I said with a smirk, "do you think you could open it, oh mistress of opening doors?"

Elizabeth shot me a look, but it disappeared when she saw that I was kidding. After a few moments, she picked the lock, and we moseyed on in. I started rifling through desks, picking up silver eagles, while Elizabeth looked worried.

"What happens if someone finds us here?"

"Oh, that's easy," I said offhandedly, as I picked up a first-aid kit, "we just tell them we got lost looking for the bathroom."

"And that works?" asked Elizabeth.

"Not usually, no, but— hello, what do we have here?" Elizabeth ran over as I found another trio of Lutece Infusions. I prepared to drink them, but I offered them to Elizabeth.

"No thank you," she said, "I'd like to try and avoid combat altogether."

I shrugged. "Suit yourself." I said, as chugged the Infusions.

The last thing we found in the room was a safe, which Elizabeth took a crack at. It took a couple of minutes, but she got it open, and revealed about 500 silver eagles.

"Jackpot!" I yelled as I scooped up the cash.

"Now that we've finished stealing everything not nailed down," said Elizabeth, clearly not amused by my antics, "could we please get going?"

"First, it's not 'stealing', it's called 'scavenging', which makes us sound like we're surviving; second, I am more than ready."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes, but we continued on our way. As we neared the exit, I noticed a large battery-like thing connected to the wall, which then shorted out and died. As it did so, the heavy metal gate crashed down; I barely pulled Elizabeth out of the way before it crushed her.

"Thank you." She said.

"This is the second time I've saved your ass from getting squished," I told her, "could you look up a little more?"

Elizabeth looked down at her feet. "I'm sorry."

I waved it off. "If you're really sorry, then learn from your mistake."

"Well, anyway, the gate is shut; how are we going to get to the airship now?"

I looked at the gate; it didn't seem as heavy as I first thought. "Maybe I can get it open by hand."

I grabbed the hole near the bottom of the gate and heaved; it must have been hollow, or made of some pretty shitty materials, because it was pretty easy to lift. I held it open long enough for Elizabeth to walk underneath, then I followed; the gate slammed down behind me.

"Huh, what's a 'Shock Jockey'?" asked Elizabeth. In front of her was a large sign showing bolts of electricity.

"Looks like a Vigor." I said, "Might be useful to be able to shoot lighting out of my hands."

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. "And shooting flocks of crows isn't?"

I'm starting to like this girl.

As we reached the outside to another pier, we heard a roaring sound; above us flew the First Lady Airship. Our ticket out of this goddamn city that would, hopefully, be my ticket home.

"Looks like the First Lady is heading towards the dock." I said, "Didn't know she had to go there to get her thrills."

Yes, I made a hooker joke. No, I don't regret it.

Elizabeth either didn't get the joke, or she didn't hear me, because she just started moving along the pier, almost as if in a daze. I guess she really wanted to go to Paris. I had to run to catch up.

"Elizabeth!" I called, snapping her out of it, "We don't know what's out there; stay close, all right?"

Shaking her head as if to clear it, she looked at me. "Of course; I'm sorry, it's just that I was so excited…"

I held up a hand to stop her. "I get it; I want to get out of this city just as much as you do. Still, let's not do anything stupid, all right?"

She nodded, then looked around. "Should we go straight to the next gondola, or look around the boardwalk?"

I thought about it for a moment; I had plenty of money, Salts and ammo. Sure, there was a possibility of finding something valuable, but why make a detour when were so close to the finish line anyway?

"Let's just get to that airship."

Elizabeth smiled. "Paris, here I come!"

We headed to the gondola, only stopping when I found a Vigor upgrade vendor. I quickly Possessed it for a discount, then picked up an upgrade to boost the damage of my Devil's Kiss and the duration of my Murder of Crows.

When we continued on our way, Elizabeth asked, "What exactly do you do, Booker? I mean, you're obviously a soldier, but…"

"I'm not a soldier," I interrupted her, "and I never was. I've been making investments in the stock market for the last few months; that's been working out for me so far."

"Then how do you know how to fight so well?"

I smiled at the memories. "My grandpa showed me how to use the same guns that he did; the guns here are kind of similar, and he told me how he handled combat. He took cover, aimed for the center of mass unless he was close; then he went for the head. Although he never had a shield or Vigors."

"But you've seen battle before?"

"Before today, the worst that ever happened was the occasional fistfight." Okay, they were a little more than occasional, but she didn't need to know that.

"But… you didn't seem to be bothered before."

"Well, first of all," I held up my bandaged hand, "I was pissed off; that asshole stabbed me and…"

"Could you please stop swearing?" Elizabeth demanded. Okay, she didn't like it when I cursed; at least, not while I wasn't fighting for my life, "And the second thing?"

I shrugged. "I don't know; I guess it just hasn't really hit me yet."

That's a nice thing to look forward to, isn't it?

For a while, we walked in silence; geez, this fucking pier was long. I almost missed getting shot at… okay, not really, but I don't like getting bored. Especially here; if I got bored, I could lose my edge, and that could get me killed.

"So, Booker; is there a special woman in your life?"

What the hell? Where had that come from? I was so surprised by her question that I walked into a wall. Elizabeth was looking at me curiously.

"Why do you ask?" I managed to choke out.

"Well, as you know, I haven't really had that exciting a life," she explained, "so until I have some experiences of my own, I'd like to know about _your_ life."

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose; I'd say that I don't get paid enough for this shit, but I'm not getting paid at all.

"I… I don't have anyone like that in my life; besides, I'm only eighteen, I've got plenty of time. Unless, you know, someone kills me here; then I'm kinda screwed in the relationship department."

"Oh, I see." Elizabeth seemed to be thinking about something. "Well, Paris is supposed to be the city of romance; maybe you'll find someone there."

I closed my eyes and laughed. "Are you trying to set me up on a date?" When I opened my eyes, Elizabeth was gone. "Elizabeth?"

"Over here!" came Elizabeth's voice from ahead of me, "I found it!"

Finally! I ran over to her; she was standing next to a lever, which seemed to be powered by one of those battery-like things. I pulled the lever to summon a gondola, but the battery exploded, showering us with sparks.

Crap.

"We'll have to recharge it," said Elizabeth, "but I think it only runs on the Shock Jockey Vigor."

"Well we'll just have to find one, won't we?" I looked around. "Um, I don't suppose you'd know where one is?"

"Look!" Elizabeth pointed at a sign and read aloud, "Come see the future of power at the Hall of Heroes!"

Huh. Well, that's convenient.

We followed the signs leading to the Hall of Heroes, when an announcement came up over the PA, giving a call to arms and declaring a manhunt for the False Shepherd. Which was me. Well, my hand was covered, so I didn't have to worry about getting recognized…

"It's him!"

God-fucking-dammit!

A trio of soldiers ran towards me, firing their machine guns from the hip. Elizabeth dove for cover, while I set one soldier on fire. It was remarkably easy to gun down the rest; that upgrade was really useful. I quickly looted the bodies of ammo and cash, when four more rushed at me from the top of some stairs. I launched a fireball at the tightly-packed group, setting them all on fire, then gunned them down with short bursts from my machine gun. Again, I looted the corpses and moved on, Elizabeth hot on my heels.

There was not further opposition as we made our way to the entrance of…

"Hall of Heroes closed until further notice." Read Elizabeth.

Crap. Oh well, that hasn't stopped me yet.

"At least there won't be a long line," I joked as I entered the elevator.

After Elizabeth got in, I pushed the button; I noticed a poster of a certain bird-thing behind her. It seems that the monster was actually called the Songbird, and he was the protector of the "Lamb". When Elizabeth glanced at it, she shuddered and looked away.

After a few seconds, the elevator shook, the lights flickered, and then we stopped moving.

"What the hell?" I said, "Why can't I catch a break!?"

"Is something wrong?" asked Elizabeth.

Of course something is wrong; we're stuck in an elevator!

Out loud, I said, "Maybe I can get us going again."

Fortunately, the fuse box was right next to us, so I opened it up and began to fiddle with it. I didn't know what I was doing, but I figured that if I played with it long enough, something would happen. Though it was hard to focus on what I was doing with that annoying buzzing…

"Agh, a bee!" said Elizabeth, "I hate those things!"

"So kill it!" I said, not looking up.

"No! It'll sting me!"

"Oh my God, Elizabeth; what are you, five years old?"

"I have a better idea."

I turned to see Elizabeth making the same tearing motion as before; she was facing the poster of the Songbird.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm opening a Tear!" With a grunt, she opened a hole. In space.

"Holy shit!"

On the other side of the hole was what looked like part of a living room, with an open window.

"What is that?" I asked

"It's a Tear." Elizabeth said, as if it was obvious. "I used to open them all the time in my tower."

"What is a Tear?"

"It's like a… a window," she explained, "a window to another place and time." She looked out the window in the… window. "Most of the time they're dull as dishwater; a different setting on the clock, or blue wallpaper instead of yellow."

"This seems a lot different than a change of wallpaper." I noted.

Elizabeth nodded. "Sometimes I can see something amazing, and I can pull it through." She walked over to the window, where a small flower garden was growing, and put a flower behind her ear.

"I don't suppose you can pull an airship through?" I joked.

Elizabeth smiled and shook her head. "No such luck." Then she frowned. "The strange thing was that, every once in a while, I'd feel very weak, and I couldn't open a Tear for at least a week. But now, I… oh, no!"

Outside the window, I could see a very large, very familiar, bird-like shape.

"Close it," I said urgently, "close it now!"

Elizabeth did so, just before the Songbird reached us. Both of us stood there for a moment, panting in fear. Then the elevator started moving. Neither of us said anything until the doors opened. Before we got too far, I grabbed Elizabeth's arm.

"Look," I said, "if you don't know what you're bringing in, _don't _do that again."

Elizabeth looked up. "And if I _do _know?"

I shrugged. "If it helps us, I don't mind, just so long as you don't bring tall, dark and scary back."

Elizabeth smiled. "I won't let you down, Booker!"

I nodded, and we kept going. I could see why this place had been shut down; it looked like a war had broken out in here. There were empty crates of ammo and broken weapons. Well, at least I scrounged some extra machine gun ammo.

As we left the first hall, I found something different; it was a Vigor bottle. It wasn't the Shock Jockey, though; it was brass-colored, had a horse carved into the top, and was called the Bucking Bronco. Elizabeth looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

"What?" I asked.

"Do you have any idea what that will do if you drink it?"

I shook my head. "No, but I didn't really know what the others would do when I drank those, either."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes, even as I popped the lid and drank it. It tasted like dry dirt, but went down like water. Suddenly, my hands became cracked and dry, like a lake that didn't have any water in it. Then, in a flash, my hands were normal again. As the manifestation ended, Elizabeth walked up to me.

"Well?" she asked, "What does it do?"

I picked up the bottle and read aloud, "Sends your enemies soaring into the air." I looked at her. "Sounds pretty straightforward to me."

We stepped out of the hallway, and again into an open area, but we took cover when we heard a voice shout out.

"And when we strike, we will teach Cornelius Slate a lesson… Now, I know that some of you see Slate as some kind of war hero, but he is a traitor to the Prophet! He and his troops have thrown in their lot with the Vox, and it is up to us to prevent Slate's forces from joining up with Fitzroy's!"

Huh; apparently, there was a group of soldiers who had defected. That could be useful, but we still needed to get past the handful of soldiers in front of us first. Deciding to try out my new Vigor, I focused on the Bucking Bronco and thrust my left hand out towards them. A weird sphere came out from my palm, and when it impacted at the center of the group, it created a tornado under each man's feet. Seeing as how they weren't going anywhere, I took them out with quick bursts of machine gun fire.

I moved in to loot the bodies, but another squad of soldiers rushed down the stairs. I distracted them with a flock of crows, then ran up to shoot them with my shotgun. After they were dead, I had a plethora of corpses to rob.

I'm going to hell, aren't I?

Elizabeth and I moved down the street, but didn't get far before we ran into another group of soldiers, supported by a turret. Seeing that as the bigger threat, I Possessed the turret, then Bronco'd the soldiers into the air. It was kind of funny, actually, to see the turret shoot the guys out of the air; I almost laughed, but then I saw Elizabeth's face. She wasn't happy with this. I quickly looted the bodies, then we left.

"So, Elizabeth," I asked, "why didn't you use a Tear to help out?"

"Well, there has to be a Tear around for me to use," she explained, "I can't just pull them out of thin air." She looked down at a wanted poster. "Who's that?"

I looked at the poster myself. It showed a balding man with an eye patch; the shoulders of his uniform was covered in some sort of circular patch. "I think it's Slate. No idea what his deal is, but if he's causing trouble for Comstock, that just means less trouble for us."

Oh, how wrong I was.

…

The rest of the immediate area was pretty safe; we didn't run into any opposition, but we did have our first encounter with the Vox Populi. They were dressed similarly to the soldiers I'd faced already, but with stripes of red paint on their uniforms and faces. We never spoke to them, considering they were all dead.

Interestingly, we found a secret room belonging to the Vox, filled with ammunition, Salts, and a trio of Lutece Infusions. I also learned a little about Daisy Fitzroy, leader of the Vox.

"I've read about her," said Elizabeth, "books say she wants to tear Columbia from the sky."

I rolled my eyes at the propaganda. "Everyone's got a dream."

The only useful thing we found outside was some money and another Minuteman Armory, which I used to upgrade my machine gun's accuracy; with less recoil, I could make more shots count.

I was getting impressed by Elizabeth's resolve; though she still looked sick every time she saw a corpse, she recovered faster each time, and she seemed to lose her qualms about taking stuff. I'm pretty sure I was responsible for her loss of morals. Now I feel bad.

We entered another hallway, only to have a turret open fire on us; I knocked Elizabeth out of the way, then Possessed the turret. It was a good thing I did, because a squad of soldiers rushed inside. Between the turret and myself, the soldiers were mowed down.

We made our way to a sky-line, which we would have used to get over a chained-shut gate, but there was a convoy of containers in the way. After a brief search, we found a small booth that started moving the containers. I was going to offer to carry Elizabeth over the sky-line, but she discovered a Skyhook in a crate.

"This is going to be fantastic!" she said as she spun the hook.

"Oh, you have no idea," I said, "it's a lot of fun as long as, you know, you're not being chased by Songbird."

"Really?" asked Elizabeth.

"In fact," I said with a smile, "you wanna race? First one to the next stop wins."

In response, Elizabeth jumped onto the sky-line and rushed off. I was only a second behind her, both of us rushing along. It was the first time I'd really enjoyed myself since getting to this city. By the time we arrived, we were both laughing.

"That was so much fun!" said Elizabeth.

"Told you so." Then I grinned. "Oh, yeah, and I won."

"What?" Elizabeth demanded, "I hit the ground before you!"

I leaned my shotgun against my shoulder and walked off. "Keep telling yourself that."

Looking back, I shouldn't have been so relaxed; I was strolling around, out of cover, and I was totally exposed. Which, of course, is right when I fought against someone with a brain. A shot rang out; I could actually feel the passing of the bullet as it crossed my line of sight. I quickly scrambled behind a wall.

"Booker! Take this rifle!" Elizabeth tossed me a sniper rifle.

I waited for the next shot to ring out, before I peered through the scope; in a moment, I found the other sniper and put a round into his head. I was about to drop the sniper rifle when I saw a dozen more soldier rushing me. I used up the rest of the ammo in the rifle and put down four more guys. I finished the rest with my machine gun and Vigors.

As I looted the bodies, I noticed something odd; the soldiers' uniforms were different. They had circular patches on their shoulders, almost like…

"Elizabeth." She turned to me. "I think these are Slate's men."

Elizabeth's eyes went wide. "Are you sure, Booker?"

I nodded. "Yeah, they've got the same uniforms."

"What do we do?"

"Well, I don't see any other option; we fight our way in, grab the Shock Jockey and get back to that airship."

With that, we entered the Hall of Heroes proper.

…

The first thing we noticed once we entered the Hall of Heroes was a mechanical statue of George Washington, with two flags coming out of his back. I'd seen them before, but never given them much thought. Considering some of the other statues I'd seen, I didn't mind this one all that much.

Elizabeth found a lantern and stayed behind me, the light illuminating the darkened building. Seeing how everything was pretty packed, I put away my machine gun in exchange for my shotgun.

I had to admit, the area was pretty damn creepy. The lantern cast huge shadows, and the corpses strewn about were in positions that made me think that they'd rise again as zombies very soon. Good thing I had a shotgun.

I heard a gasp from Elizabeth and spun around, just in time to catch her as she fell towards me; apparently, she'd tripped on a corpse. The creepiness was getting to her, it seemed; she stared up at me in fear.

"You okay?" I whispered as I helped her to her feet. She nodded, and the two of us moved on into a large, circular room with a statue of Comstock at the center.

"Well, well, well," came a booming voice, "if it isn't Booker DeWitt himself."

I had a feeling that I knew who this was. "Slate? Is that you?"

"Indeed it is, Booker." Slate confirmed. "Here to murder more of my men?"

"Hey, look, I didn't mean to kill your men, I thought they were Comstock's! All we want is the Shock Jockey; then you can go back to fighting Comstock's troops."

I could almost see Slate shake his head. "You misunderstand, Booker; I'm not mad at you for killing my men."

Elizabeth and I shared a look that basically asked the same thing: what the fuck?

"You gave them an honorable death in battle," continued Slate, "and that is all a warrior should desire."

"I don't know," I murmured to Elizabeth, "living to a ripe old age sounds like a good deal to me."

"Comstock's men are cowards!" yelled Slate, "They could not defeat us in battle, so they starve us in here! No, my men and I deserve a warrior's death; a death that you will grant us, Booker!"

Say what?

A door opened, and several of Slate's men rushed out; they must have run out of ammo in the battle with Comstock's troops, because all but one ran at me with clubs. I Possessed the guy with a gun, and together, he and I took down the others. After the Possession wore off and the guy blew his own head off with his shotgun, which I took ammo from, several more waves of troops arrived.

Thank God I had that shotgun, otherwise I'd be fighting hand-to-hand. After what seemed like an eternity, I stood over the bodies of at least two dozen men.

"There, you see, Booker?" came Slate's voice again, "You are a warrior, a soldier! And you will give us the deaths we deserve."

"Just give us the Shock Jockey, please!" begged Elizabeth; she didn't want to see Slate and his men dead any more than I did.

"Miss, if you want that Vigor, your companion is going to have to kill his way to it."

Elizabeth looked at me, but I only shook my head; Slate's men had been just as fanatical as any of Comstock's men. They weren't going to stop if we just asked nicely. Still, I wasn't going in unprepared. We found a storage room, filled with some ammo, money, Salts and three Lutece Infusions; why do those always come in threes?

I ended up fighting my way through dozens of Slate's men; first, through a version of Peking. Apparently, Slate and his men had been sent into Peking by Comstock during the Boxer Rebellion, to show "racial superiority", or some bullshit like that. That had been what had pissed off Washington so much, and what had led to Columbia seceding from the Union.

Next, we went to a replica of the Battle of Wounded Knee; this was where Slate got pissed off at Comstock. The Prophet had lied, saying that _he _was the hero of that battle, when Slate had been the one to do all the work.

Okay, I could sort of see why Slate was so pissed; Comstock had taken all the credit, shoved him and his men aside, and now he was going to kill them in the most dishonorable way possible. I still hated every second of it, though. At one point, I sat down heavily; I needed a break. Elizabeth sat down beside me.

"… This sucks." I said

"Why won't he just give us what we need?" asked Elizabeth.

"I think I know; he's gone through so many near-death experiences, he's convinced that he can only die in battle."

"That's… insane!"

"I never said it wasn't." I sighed. "But we're not getting out of this city without that Vigor; we have to play Slate's game, at least for now."

I heard a sniffling sound coming from Elizabeth, and I turned to see her crying. I didn't cry, myself, but I felt terrible regardless. These men didn't deserve this fate. I put my arm around her shoulders and let her weep. I was a little surprised that Slate's men didn't attack us at that point. They probably didn't need to come after us; they knew we couldn't leave without the Shock Jockey, and to get that, we'd have to kill them.

I stood up, and offered my hand to Elizabeth. She stared at it for a moment, before letting me pull her to her feet.

"Very good, Booker," came Slate's voice again, "you've let my troops die like men."

"I never had a problem with your men, Slate! For the last time, give us the fucking Vigor and let us leave!"

"Heroes never get to choose their path."

"Did I ever say that I was a hero?"

"Then what are you?"

I gave a tired laugh. "I'm just a kid from Brooklyn."

Slate sighed over the loudspeaker. "Come back to the rotunda; it's almost over."

Elizabeth shook her head. "All this for a Vigor. I hope Paris is worth it."

I sighed. "I hope so too; after all, I'm gonna need a vacation after all this."

Elizabeth looked at me. "You want to come to Paris too?"

I gave the best smile I could. "Well, hearing you go on and on about how much you want to go there has me curious."

Elizabeth smiled back, but it faded as we began trudging our way back to the rotunda. I thought Slate would be there, but all I found were bodies.

"I've got what you need, Booker; come to the First Lady's memorial, and we'll finish this." Slate's voice crackled, then disappeared.

Finally; I just want to get my electric superpowers and get the hell out of here.

We headed to the memorial, where we saw portraits of Lady Comstock; she was a beautiful, regal woman, who apparently really liked the color blue. Every portrait had her in a blue dress. I personally liked forest green, but then again, I don't have a memorial in my name, so I don't think my opinion matters.

As we walked down a flight of stairs, we saw a statue of Lady Comstock holding a baby, while Elizabeth read a plaque out loud.

"The seed of the Prophet lay in the womb of our Lady but for a single week."

"Yeah, I'm gonna call bullshit right there." I said.

Elizabeth ignored my cursing. "Comstock had a child; but my books never mentioned a child."

"Maybe your books were edited." I suggested.

"Maybe," said Elizabeth, then she read another plaque. "But the child took ill, and our Lady prayed for the Prophet's heir day and night."

"Still calling bullshit on the whole 'week-long pregnancy' thing." I said.

We pushed open a set of doors to see a miniature, but very familiar sight.

"That's my tower!" Elizabeth gasped.

A recording of Comstock's voice began to play. "While Daisy Fitzroy has murdered my beloved, she shall not have the child! She shall not come betwixt her and prophecy! The seed of the Prophet shall sit the throne, and drown in flame, the mountains of man!"

Wait. The tower was the throne. Comstock put his child in the throne. Elizabeth was the only one living in the tower. That meant…

Oh my God.

"I'm… I'm…" Elizabeth was in just as much shock as I was. Probably more so.

"You're Comstock's daughter." I finished.

"No! I can't be! I… I can't!"

"He wants you to follow in his footsteps." He was getting old, so he wanted his daughter to carry on his legacy.

"Well I want a puppy, but that doesn't mean I'm going to get one!"

Okay, she's using snark. I can handle snark.

"Right," I said, "so why don't we take away _Comstock's _puppy, okay?"

A grim smile came over Elizabeth's face. "A good idea."

We made our way to another door, which Elizabeth picked the lock to. We made our way to a large gate. Elizabeth, being very slender, started to slip through.

"I can make it through the bars, but you're too broad."

Hey! It's not my fault I work out!

"Look up there!" I followed Elizabeth's finger and saw…

"Is that a Tear?"

"Yes! And on the other side is…" she squinted to look through it, "a freight hook!"

I squinted at the Tear as well, and sure enough, I could see a hook that I could latch onto with my Skyhook.

"Well, that's convenient." I looked back at Elizabeth. "Can you open it?"

Instead of answering, she only raised her hands, and the hook appeared. I grinned as I flew up, then dropped down next to Elizabeth. I raised my hand.

"High-five."

Elizabeth looked from my face to my hand, then weakly gave me a high-five.

"We'll work on it." I told her.

"Hey, look!" Elizabeth pointed, and I could see two more Tears. "One of those will give us more freight hooks to use, while the other gives us a turret and some cover."

I thought about it, but the idea of having a turret on my side without Possessing it, plus cover, sounded more appealing than swinging around like Tarzan.

"Bring in the turret."

Elizabeth did so, just as a huge group of Slate's men rushed towards us. Elizabeth took cover, while I and our new mechanical friend mowed them down. We pushed forward; Elizabeth stayed behind me as I pushed open another set of doors, shotgun ready. As we entered the room, we heard a mechanical voice.

"God judges; I act." And then we were attacked by a robot-version of George Washington.

Fuck my life.

The robo-prez, or Motorized Patriot, as I found out what they were really called, was carrying some sort of Gatling gun, sending us scrambling for cover. Then I noticed another Tear, with another turret.

"Elizabeth!" I yelled, pointing at the Tear.

"On it!" in a flash of light, the turret appeared and opened fire on the Patriot.

I snuck behind it while it was distracted, and put four shotgun shells into its mechanical guts. I thought that would be the end of it, but the robot swung around and hit me with the barrels of its gun, sending me sailing into a wall.

Ow.

The Patriot lowered its gun at me, but before it could fire, a brick flew through the air and hit it on the head. The Patriot turned to face the new threat; as it did, I set its back on fire, then proceeded to fire four more shotgun shells at it. Finally, it went down. I slumped back to the floor as Elizabeth ran up to me.

"Booker, are you all right?"

"Yeah," I replied, "but why are there three of you?"

Elizabeth looked at me in concern as I got to my feet.

"I'm joking," I said, "I'll be fine in a second; nice throw with that brick, by the way. You've got a good arm."

She practically beamed at me; she really liked being helpful, it seemed. "Thanks, Booker."

"You've got the right stuff, I'll give you that," came Slate's voice; man, that guy knew how to ruin a moment, "I could have used a man like you in my company."

"No thanks!" I shouted back, "I hear army food is terrible!"

"Hey, Booker!" I turned to face Elizabeth, who was picking a lock, "Maybe there's something we can use in here!"

After Elizabeth got the door open, we found plenty of useful stuff; money, Salts and ammo but…

"No Shock Jockey." I muttered. The Vigor had been here, as evidenced by the bottles on the ground, but those were empty. However, someone had stepped in a puddle of the purple Vigor, and had left a trail. It was the best shot we had, so we took it.

"Do you think that Slate has the Shock Jockey?" asked Elizabeth.

"Probably," I told her, "just to make sure that we'd come for him and finish the job."

I was about to push open the next door, but I paused and looked back at the Patriot; specifically, at its Gatling gun. I wondered if…

I slung my shotgun over my shoulder to join my machine gun and, with a grunt, hefted the multibarreled weapon. Good God, that fucking gun was heavy! After examining it, I realized I could only fire by turning the crank on its side. I can see why they would give this thing to a robot, my arm would get tired pretty fast. I'd have to used bursts of fire; I decided to used sustained fire only if I had no other choice.

I saw Elizabeth staring at me. "What now?"

"Is that gun really necessary?"

I looked down at the weapon. "I'm not compensating for anything, I swear."

Elizabeth tilted her head. "What would you be compensating for?"

I sighed. "Trust me; in a hundred years, that joke'll be hilarious."

Then I froze; shit, now was _not _the place to tell her that I was from the future. Thankfully, Elizabeth seemed to realize that we should get going, though her expression said that she expected me to answer her questions later. That was not going to be fun.

We heard a voice in the distance; it was a now-familiar voice, but it wasn't coming from a loudspeaker.

"Is that…?" began Elizabeth.

"Slate," I finished, "he's here. Let's finish this and get out of this place."

We charged forward, and right into a battle between more of Slate's men and Comstock's. Slate's troops were better trained and had more experience, but Comstock's soldiers were better supplied, rested and had numbers. Since I had to go through Comstock's soldiers anyway, I opened fire with my crank gun, and holy crap! That thing was a monster when it came to mowing down unshielded targets. In ten seconds, I'd killed almost a dozen guys. Slate's troops killed the rest, and then it was just them left.

I fired my crank gun from the hip, "Commando"-style, killing the rest of Slate's men just as I ran out of ammo.

Schwarzenegger's got nothing on me.

After dropping the crank gun and pulling out my machine gun, I headed towards the door, but it exploded outwards, revealing another Motorized Patriots and a pair of Firemen.

Huh. Hadn't fought one of those in a while. I kept the Firemen distracted with a Bronco, then a flock of crows, then I put clip after clip of machine gun ammo into the Patriot, throwing a fireball every once in a while for good measure. I felt an impact as I was knocked to the side; one of the Firemen had gotten back up and tackled me. The other was dead. I used my arms to block the punches from the Fireman, then punched him in the kidney. As he fell in pain, I yanked him up and used him a human shield from the Patriot's bullets. I sent a few more fireballs its way, until it finally died.

I was a bit battered and bruised, but nothing I couldn't recover from. Elizabeth got out of cover and started scrounging, while I got my second wind. She came back with a couple dozen silver eagles, Salts and a little ammo. Sadly, I was running low of ammunition for both my guns; I'd have to rely more on my Vigors soon if I didn't…

"Booker, look!"

I turned to see another Tear; this one opened up to a vending machine, which I knew sold ammo. I nodded, and Elizabeth opened it up. After Possessing it for a discount, I stocked up on bullets. After I was sure that I was ready, we entered the next room.

We finally found Slate; he was hurt, but I couldn't tell where. For all I know, the old man might have just been tired. Next to his hand was what we'd come all this way for: the Shock Jockey. I reached for it, but Slate grabbed my arm.

"Finish it, Booker!" he roared, as he pressed a pistol into my hand.

For a minute, I considered pulling the trigger; after all, this asshole had put us through hell just to get one fucking Vigor. If he hadn't, Elizabeth and I would be halfway to Paris by now. Then I saw Elizabeth's face; she was tired of all the senseless bloodshed. So was I, actually. I mean, killing to defend yourself, that's one thing; but killing because other people want to die… that's just sad.

"No." I said. Slate's eye widened, while Elizabeth looked pleasantly surprised.

"Why!?" Slate demanded, "You've killed half of my men; one more won't burden your soul any more."

"I've beaten you in honorable combat," I said as an idea flickered in my mind, "and as the victor, I can decide your fate." This idea might just get Slate and his men out alive, plus provide a little more trouble for a certain asshole of a Prophet.

Slate glared at me, then slumped. "What are your terms?" he asked tiredly.

"First, you give me the Shock Jockey." Slate obeyed, and handed me the purple bottle. "Next, since Comstock's men seem to be gone, I want you to take your men and join up with the Vox Populi; if you want to die in battle so badly, go do it against Comstock's troops."

Defeated, Slate only nodded; he got up slowly, then left to gather up his men.

"You did the right thing." I turned to see a smiling Elizabeth.

"I hope so," I said, "but I have a feeling that I might have just created another problem."

"It's only a problem if we're in the city; I don't think it'll matter if we're in Paris."

I shrugged. "Point taken."

Elizabeth nodded, and the two of us headed out.

**Holy crap, I hated Slate; it was just one big pointless battle for one Vigor. Still, I never did like what happened if you spared him; he just gets executed off-screen. What a rip-off. So, yeah, he and his troops are going to join the Vox, and will play a part later on.**

**And yeah, Elizabeth is Comstock's daughter. More development on that will come, but she and Booker were kind of in the middle of a fight, so they didn't get much time to discuss that. They will later, though.**

**Next time: Confessions, time-travel and airships, oh my!**

**Yippie-kay-yay, mothermuffin.**


	6. Chapter 6

**BIOSHOCK INFINITE DOES NOT BELONG TO ME. IF SOPA STILL WANTS TO MAKE SOMETHING OF IT, I HAVE A PLASMID WITH THEIR COLLECTIVE NAMES ON IT READY AND WAITING.**

**You know that song "Castle on a Cloud" from "Les Miserables"? Do you think Cosette would take it back if she ever went to Columbia?**

Bioshock Infinite

Hell in Heaven

Chapter 6

Airships and the Deals to Get Them

After the shit-storm that was our encounter with Slate, Elizabeth and I made our way back to the docks. It was time to get out of Columbia before something else happened. Which, of course, meant that the second we emerged from the Hall of Heroes, something happened.

A handful of cops showed up and opened fire on us. Elizabeth took cover, while I sent a flock of flesh-eating birds their way. The cops weren't a problem; I'd taken down so many that they were easy to kill. Then I felt a barrage of bullets hit my shield from above. I looked up to see a turret, like so many I'd Possessed since coming here. Only difference was, this one was attached to balloons, and was flying around.

I swear, I am going to find the bastard who makes this stuff, and I will kill him.

Still, if I could Possess a normal turret, why not a flying one? I sent the Vigor at it and, sure enough, it was merrily ripping another group of cops to shreds. I would have preferred the little guy to stick around, but one last cop showed up, toting a rocket launcher, and blew my new friend out of the sky. Oh, you didn't know? People had rocket launchers in 1912; and here I thought that we were still using bolt-action rifles back then. In all seriousness, where are these guys getting technology that shouldn't exist for decades?

I shot the rocket guy, then Elizabeth looted the bodies while I covered her. After stocking up on cash, ammo and Salts, we moved on.

"Booker," said Elizabeth, "shouldn't you drink the Shock Jockey now, just so that it doesn't break by accident?"

Oh, right; almost forgot about the thing we'd risked our lives for. I smiled sheepishly, then drank the Vigor. It kinda tasted like liquid Pop Rocks. It was a little freaky seeing blue crystals growing out of my arms and hands, but they went back to normal once the manifestation ended. I smiled at the lighting crackling between my fingers.

"Hang on, Elizabeth," I said, my smile turning into a grin, "there's something I've always wanted to do."

Elizabeth looked at me curiously, but still followed me into an alley. I slung my machine gun onto my back to join my shotgun, then pointed both of my hands down the alley. I charged up my new Vigor, and unleashed a storm of electricity.

"POWER!" I yelled. "UNLIMITED POWER!" I spent the next minute or so laughing my ass off. It was totally worth it. Come on, if you could shoot lighting out of your hands, you'd do the same thing.

Now that that was out of my system, we made our way back to Soldier's Field, where the gondola to the First Lady awaited. I think it was around that time that I noticed Elizabeth giving me more and more of those strange looks. I was going to have to tell her about the time-travel stuff soon, or she was either going to think that I couldn't be trusted, or that I was crazy. Maybe both.

We had a couple more skirmishes with some soldiers, but nothing that a few bullets and a fireball or two couldn't take care of. We were almost at the gondola when Elizabeth stopped me; she dragged me into an empty house, into a room, and slammed the door. I would have asked why she'd dragged me into the bedroom, but she pushed me into the wall.

"Booker," she said in a dangerously low voice, "before we go any further, I want you to answer some questions."

Oh crap; I think I knew where this was going.

"Okay, what?"

"You haven't told me why you rescued me from the tower; start with that."

I sighed; this was going to suck. "Okay, but you might have trouble believing it."

I spent a while telling her about waking up in the city, getting the instructions to rescue her, meeting the Lutece twins, and everything else that happened before we met. When I finished, her expression was a mix of anger and confusion.

"You're saying… that you are from a hundred years in the future?" She shook her head. "How is that possible?"

"Actually, I've been thinking about that lately." I tapped my chin in thought. "You said that Tears were doorways to other places and times… what if someone opened up a really big Tear and brought the plane through?" Elizabeth didn't look convinced. "It also explains how Columbia has the technology that it has. I mean, handheld machine guns won't be around for a while longer, those mechanical horses have _never _existed, and I'm not even going to ask where they got the Vigors from. I think that scientists here have been using Tears to take things that exist in the future, and reverse-engineer them into stuff that they can use."

Elizabeth stared at me for a moment, then turned and sat on the bed; she just stared at the floor for a while, then spoke in a soft voice.

"What does this mean, then?" she looked up at me with tears in her eyes. "Is that why you rescued me? Just so that you could go home?"

I slowly sat on the bed next to her. "It may have started out that way," I admitted, which made Elizabeth's head drop again, "but that started to change when I got to the tower; I saw what they were doing, and how they treated you. No one deserves that."

Elizabeth looked back up at me. "What about you wanting to go home?"

I shrugged. "So far, the Lutece twins haven't done anything to screw me over; I'm guessing that once we're safe, something will happen that will let me go home. Until then, are we still partners?"

I held out my hand for her to shake. She did so, but then reached back with her other hand and slapped me.

"Ow! What the hell!?"

She glared at me. "That was for keeping secrets from me." She waved her finger in front of my face. "Don't do it again."

I rolled my eyes. "Fine." Then a thought occurred to me. "You seem… remarkably accepting of everything I've told you."

Elizabeth shrugged. "You haven't done anything to 'screw me over', as you would say, and while I am upset that you kept a secret like that…"

"I barely know you!" I protested, "Why would I trust you with something like that!?"

"… you've done so much for me, you've even risked your life; I seriously doubt that you would tell me such an incredible tale if it wasn't true. Besides, I trust you."

I had a weird itch in my throat when she said that; it made it difficult to speak.

"Now then," she said cheerfully, "I believe we have an airship to catch."

…

After a few minor skirmishes, we made it back to the station that summoned the gondola. I used my new Vigor to charge the battery, then pulled the lever. Apparently, the gondola took a long-ass time to get to where we were. It looked like we were in for a long wait…

"**He will abandon you, my sweet Elizabeth," **came the voice of Comstock over the loudspeakers, **"once he has what he needs, he will leave you alone."**

Goddammit, I hate Comstock; why can't he just drink the Kool-Aid like every other crazy cult leader?

Elizabeth, having had enough of Comstock's bullshit, said, "Father, Prophet, whomever you are; I am leaving, and there is nothing you can do to stop me!"

"You tell him!" I told her.

"**Oh, sweet child," **Comstock said, **"you are very wrong about that."**

While I hate that guy with everything I am, I have to admit that Comstock has great timing; as soon as he stopped talking, two airships showed up to drop off a bunch of soldiers. Elizabeth took cover, while I opened up with everything I had. I Possessed the two turrets on the airships, then sent a flock of crows at one group. While they were distracted, I charged forward and blasted them all with my shotgun.

The other group of soldiers were being pinned down by their own turrets. I pulled out my machine gun and opened fire. Between three automatic weapons, supplemented by the occasional fireball on my part, they were taken down quickly. I was about to move to loot the bodies, when…

"Booker, look out!"

I barely had time to acknowledge Elizabeth's warning, then I was sent flying backwards into a wall. Ow. After the world stopped spinning, I looked up to see another airship; this one had more soldiers, plus a few packing rocket launchers. Terrific. While I took cover to let my shield recharge, the other rocket troopers blew up the other airships, taking away my turrets.

I couldn't get out of cover without getting blown up again; fortunately, I was close to a sky-line. I zipped on over to it, then rode the line until I was on top of another building. I Possessed one of the rocket troopers before they knew what was going on. I thought that I'd still have a fight on my hands, but the Possessed guy opened fire on the clustered group, point-blank. He and everyone else were sent flying off the airship, and to their deaths.

I took a deep breath, thankful for the reprieve; then I zipped back over to Elizabeth, who was gathering supplies.

"Are you all right, Booker?" she asked.

I shrugged. "Well, getting blown up sucks, but I'm alive." I stepped closer. "Are you okay?"

Elizabeth gave me a weak smile. "I just want to get away from this city and my… my father."

"You know, I think he was lying." I don't know why this thought hadn't occurred to me earlier; Comstock told me as much.

"What was he lying about?" asked Elizabeth. "You mean about you leaving me alone?"

I sighed. "Okay, at some point, we are probably gonna part ways." I saw her head fall. "But I'm not just gonna dump you in the middle of Paris; I wouldn't feel right about that. I'll see what I can do to help you along."

Elizabeth smiled a bit, but before I could say more, the gondola _finally _arrived. Jesus, that took forever. As we climbed aboard, and after I got the thing moving, I continued.

"I think Comstock's lying about you being his daughter." Elizabeth looked at me curiously.

"How can you be certain?"

"Well," I thought of everything I'd heard and seen regarding Elizabeth and Comstock, "first, there's the whole 'one-week pregnancy' thing; that's just impossible. Second, you and I have both seen pictures of Comstock and his wife; you don't look like either of them in the slightest. Third, and this is important, Comstock himself told me that he 'rescued' you; probably from the surface."

Elizabeth gasped. "You mean… I was kidnapped? I have a family somewhere?"

I nodded. "Maybe; I mean, that's what it looks like to me."

Elizabeth rushed over and grabbed me by the front of my jacket. "We have to find them!"

"Okay, okay!" I gently pried her fingers off of me. "Well, that might be difficult; we don't even know if Elizabeth is your real name, and if you were kidnapped at a really young age, we don't know if anyone will recognize you."

I saw a defeated look in her eyes, and suddenly I felt bad. "I mean, if we were in 2013, we could have a DNA test run on you, and maybe we could find your family that way, but if you're from this time period, that doesn't look like an option."

Elizabeth nodded, but she still seemed depressed. I gently put an arm around her. "Hey, don't worry about it; first, we'll get out of the city, then we'll hit up Paris. Who knows, maybe the reason that you want to go there is because you were born there."

Elizabeth looked back up at me. "Really?"

"Well, it's a long shot, but it's all we have right now; I say we take our chances." We both looked ahead at the path the gondola was taking; I gave a small laugh. "Wow; and I thought _I _had family issues."

"What do you mean?" asked Elizabeth, who raised an eyebrow at me, "You weren't raised by an insane cult leader?"

Okay, it's official; I like this girl. "Well, no, but I know what it's like to have a messed-up family."

"What happened?"

My smile faded as I began to remember. "Well, Dad would beat me up every time he got drunk; problem was, he was drunk more than he was sober. Then there was Mom; she didn't lay a hand on me, but she called me a monster all the time. I can actually count the number of times she called me by my real name."

"Is that how you got that scar on your hand?"

I looked at my bandaged right hand. "Well, no, that was because a crazy guy stabbed me a few hours ago."

"Booker, that's not what I mean; I saw the x-shaped scar."

I sighed. "Yeah, Dad came after me with a knife once; I knocked him out, but not before he gave me a souvenier."

Elizabeth put her hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Booker; I didn't mean to open up painful memories."

I shrugged. "Eh, it's okay; they can't hurt me anymore. They died in a car accident a few months ago. Turns out, they had some nice properties in England that no one knew about, so they went to me, and I sold 'em. That's why I was flying over the Atlantic in the first place; I was on my way back."

"Where are you from?"

"New York. Got to move to Manhattan after the life insurance money came in; my new place is pretty nice, and with the way my investments are turning out, I don't think I'll have to worry about money for a long time."

Elizabeth nodded. "Well, I'm glad that you came along when you did; I'm not sure what would have happened to me otherwise."

"Yeah." Then I felt a slight weight on my chest; I looked down to see Elizabeth leaning her head against my chest. Apparently, I'd kept my arm around her the entire time, and she hadn't complained. Fortunately, I was saved from any embarrassment when we arrived at the First Lady's Aerodrome. I lifted my arm, and we continued on our way.

The place was pretty clean, but it seemed too quiet for me. I held my machine gun at the ready, and slowly creeped in. That caution probably saved my life, because a dozen soldiers rushed in, firing machine guns. Elizabeth took cover, while I took half of the bastards out of the fight with a Bucking Bronco. I set the rest on fire and finished them off with a few bursts of bullets. I took out the floating guys with a few bolts of lightning.

After looting the bodies of money, bullets and Salts, Elizabeth and I made our way to the elevator. For a moment, we just stared at each other awkwardly, before Elizabeth finally spoke.

"So, they call you the False Shepherd?"

I nodded. "And they call you the Lamb."

Elizabeth shuddered. "Let's never call each other that."

"Agreed."

As the door opened up, Elizabeth asked, "How do you think they knew that you were coming?" she pointed to a sign that had picture of my scarred hand reaching out to a lamb.

"Well, either they've got a prophet on their side…"

"Har har."

"Or there's something else going on."

Elizabeth crossed her arms. "Well, if we get out of this city, maybe we won't have to find out."

"You're preaching to the choir."

We got onboard the First Lady, and while Elizabeth headed for the controls, I looked around. I found some silver eagles, some Salts, and a trio of Lutece Infusions. With that last gift, I felt all of my bumps and bruises go away, actually leaving me feeling like I'd gotten ten hours of sleep. Those Infusions were really handy; not to mention, getting my shield upgraded further was a bonus.

"Booker, I've got it!"

Fantastic; I headed to the front of the airship, where Elizabeth was stepping away from the controls. She turned to me with a smile.

"I want to see Paris, I want to find my family, I want to… I want to see everything!"

I smiled back. "Well, now that you're free, you'll get your chance."

I would have said more, but I was distracted by the sight of another airship heading towards us; unlike others that I'd seen, this one had sloppily-painted red stripes on it.

"What the hell is…" I didn't get to finish, because a massive impact sent both of us flying.

I felt a brief pain, and then everything went black.

…

It took a while for me to wake up again, at least completely. I remember waking up for a few seconds to see Elizabeth running out the door, crying. I remember hearing a loud banging, and gunshots in the distance. I also remember someone grabbing me by the throat.

I think that last part was what woke me up.

I might have been mostly-conscious, but I wasn't strong enough to resist whoever was dragging me across the floor. I think I passed out again for a moment, because the next thing I knew, I was hanging outside of the airship; below me was a bunch of prisoners in black and white uniforms, being overseen by one of those Handymen I'd seen at the fair, digging away in a pile of trash.

So that was what they did with their trash? Well that answered one question; still, that was more of a retrospect kind of thing. Since I was hanging outside of a perfectly good airship, I had only one thing going through my mind.

"Holy shit!"

"Daisy," said the man holding my neck, "the fresh air did the trick; he's awake."

I was yanked to my feet, where a young African woman approached me. Wait, Daisy? Daisy Fitzroy? Oh, this could be really bad for me.

"So, you're this 'False Shepherd' we've been hearing so much about." Fitzroy looked me up and down. "Cause a mess of trouble at the raffle. Still, gotta thank you for sending Slate my way; he and his boys are professionals, and Slate managed to turn bunch of other soldiers to our side, but it's not enough."

"Look," I said as calmly as I could, "I don't want any trouble; I just want my airship back, and I'll be outta your hair."

"Really?" Fitzroy didn't look convinced. "'Cause this looks like Comstock's airship to me."

"I didn't come here to fight…" I started to say.

"Too late for that, DeWitt," Fitzroy moved to the side; behind her were several members of the Vox Populi, all of whom were injured, "because there's already a fight. Question is, whose side you on?"

"Comstock is the god of the white man, the rich man, the pitiless man." Apparently, Daisy decided to go revolutionary-rhetoric on me. "But if you believe in common folk, then join the Vox. If you believe in righteous folk, then join the Vox."

"I just want my ship!" I interrupted, before she could get all holier-than-thou on me.

Fitzroy gave me a glare for cutting off her speech, but it quickly vanished. "And the Vox shall give her to you."

Oh, well, that wasn't so hard.

"But first, the Vox would have one more service from you."

Fuck, I knew that was too easy.

Fitzroy handed me a business card. "Slate and his troops gave us guns, but not enough for all of us. Down in Finkton, there's a gunsmith who can supply us with everything we need." She gave me a smirk. "Get our guns from him, and you shall have your ship back."

I didn't really have any other choice; I had to get the airship back, and I needed to find Elizabeth again. Besides, if the Vox made a big move soon, it might distract Comstock enough for Elizabeth and I to make our getaway.

Daisy nodded to the man holding me, who gave me an evil smile, then pushed me. Out of the fucking ship. For a minute, I thought I was gonna die. The very painful impact with the "ground" disabused me of that notion. Good God, I sound like Elizabeth.

As I struggled to my feet, I saw the guy who'd pushed me give me a jaunty wave as the airship flew off. I gave the finger in return, then looked around. Apparently, I was in a place called Finkton. I'd seen the name Fink on a lot of products throughout the city, but hadn't given it much thought. I guess that I was in the main industrial center of Columbia. I also noticed that it was morning; I must have been out for a while, because it had been around midnight when I got knocked out.

I stretched my arms, grateful that Fitzroy had left me with my guns, and headed to the main factory area; it seemed like a good place to start. As I walked, I pulled out the business card again. The gunsmith's name was Chen Lin; I found it a little weird that these racist assholes would hire a Chinese man for anything, but I guess if you've got a good talent, they overlook what they saw as failings.

I saw other people around, so I did my best to stay out of sight; I didn't want to give myself away again. Though, knowing my luck, I'd probably get into a fight any…

"There's the girl! Grab her!"

I spun around and saw several guards running after a girl in a blue skirt; a very familiar girl in a blue skirt.

Elizabeth disappeared around a corner, but I was able to kill off her pursuers; they hadn't expected to be shot in the back. I followed the same path that she took, thankful that there weren't any forking paths that she might have taken. I ran into a few more guards, but they were about as effective as the police I'd slaughtered. The only difference was that they were better-armed.

At one point I'd almost caught up with her, but so did a pack of guards; while I was fighting them, Elizabeth vanished again. After a few minutes of running, I heard Elizabeth's voice.

"Let go of me right now!" Ok, she wasn't happy.

"Comstock wants you, girl," said an unfamiliar voice, "and we mean to give ya to him!"

"After we're done with ya, of course." Said another voice.

Okay, these assholes were dead; no one threatens someone with rape, certainly not my friend, and especially not when I have a gun.

I charged from building to building, keeping the voices nearby, but every time I came too close, a bunch of Comstock's men would show up, and I'd have to stop long enough to deal with them. It became a long, annoying race; I lost count of how many people I killed. Thankfully, I saw Elizabeth a little while later, zipping down a sky-line; it looked like she'd gotten away from her captors. I tried calling out to her, but she either didn't hear me, or was too scared to notice me.

When I finally reached the end of a dock, I realized that I'd made a wrong turn somewhere. I turned to backtrack, but an impact sent me flying. I looked up to see a giant mechanical body, covered in ratty clothes, and had an elderly face.

Shit, it was a Handyman.

"_False Shepherd."_ The thing took a step towards me, then wrapped his oversized hand around my torso, and threw me over the edge.

I caught myself on a crate that was suspended by a crane, but the Handyman threw a sharp piece of metal, slicing through the ropes holding the crate up. I began to fall, and there was nothing that I could do to stop.

I closed my eyes, waiting for the end, when I hit something. I looked down to see that I'd landed on a blimp; it hadn't been there before, so how did…

"Booker!"

I turned my head and saw Elizabeth standing on another dock; she looked a little worse for wear. Her hair was tousled, her skirt had a ragged rip up one side, all the way up to her knee, her blouse was missing the left sleeve at the shoulder, and there were two rips in the side that seemed to stretch all the way to her back. I also noticed that her ascot was missing, and a few of the top buttons of her blouse were gone.

Still, her eyes told me that she was just happy to see me; or maybe she was just glad to see someone with a friendly face.

The blimp that I was on, which had been brought in courtesy of a Tear, drifted to the dock, and I hopped off. Elizabeth ran over to me and gave me a tight hug.

"I thought you were dead!" I could see tears coming down her face as she said that.

"Well, I'm not," I said, even as I returned the hug, "and I've got good news; I have a way to get our airship back from the Vox."

Elizabeth let go, wiping away her tears. "We can get out of here?"

"Yes, all I have to do is supply enough weapons to arm an entire uprising."

Elizabeth stared at me, before giving a bitter laugh. "And where are we supposed to get these weapons? From our many friends and allies?"

I smiled. "Don't worry, I have a location; there's a gunsmith in Finkton, it should be a walk in the park." I handed her the business card that Fitzroy had provided.

Elizabeth sighed. "I'm starting to think that Paris is more trouble than it's worth."

"Well, at least no one will be trying to kill us in Paris." I offered, then held out my hand. "Want to get moving, partner?"

Elizabeth stared at me for a moment, then put her hand in mine. "All right, then; let's get going."

**And, that's another chapter finished! I like this game, but I really hate how Booker is such a jackass. I decided to have Booker be a lot more honest early on; I figure that would let Elizabeth trust him more. However, that meant that I had to change what happened in their reunion. Since Elizabeth doesn't seem betrayed, she'd be happier to see Booker. Also, she didn't hit him with a wrench.**

**I know that this chapter was shorter than others, but this seemed like a good place to stop. I know that updates are slower with this story, but I have my Ben 10 story to work on as well, plus I have college, so don't expect updates more than once every couple of weeks. That being said, I really do like this story; it's fun to write what goes on in Booker's head.**

**That'll do, Muffin; that'll do.**


	7. Chapter 7

**BIOSHOCK INFINITE DOES NOT BELONG TO ME. IF IT DID, I'D HAVE PUT MORE PUZZLES AND EXPLORATION INTO THE GAME, NOT JUST COMBAT AND CRAZY PEOPLE.**

**Hello? Is it someone new? Well, I suppose that if you've been reading up until now, you aren't new anymore. Something that I've missed when comparing the original Bioshock and Infinite: I miss the wrench. I know that the Skyhook is cool, but the wrench just seems like something that anyone could just pick up and swing. For a Skyhook, I imagine that you'd need training to use effectively. A wrench, not so much.**

**Anyway, on with the show!**

Bioshock Infinite

Hell in Heaven

Chapter 7

Bad Business Decisions

After Elizabeth and I reunited, we started to get moving, but we didn't get far before I noticed another Minuteman Armory; after I Possessed it for a discount, I started to peruse. I might have become something of a shopaholic; coupled with my rampant kleptomania, I think I have some serious issues to work through, assuming I survived Columbia.

"Um, Booker?"

"Yeah, what's up?" I asked, not looking at her as I bought an upgrade to add 25% of damage to my shotgun.

"Are you… mad at me?"

"About what?" Ooh, an upgrade to my machine gun that allowed a double-sized clip and larger ammo capacity; mine!

"About leaving you behind."

"Oh, that; nah, you said that you thought I was dead. I understand." Cool, another upgrade to my shotgun; this one cut my reload speed down by half.

"Are you absolutely sure that you aren't angry?"

I turned around, done with my shopping. "Elizabeth, if I was angry, would I have hugged you like that? You thought I was dead, so you kept on moving. If anything, I'm proud of how you were able to keep going, even if you were grieving." I gave a cheeky grin. "You _were_ grieving, right?"

Elizabeth only rolled her eyes, while mine fell on a familiar sight, inside of a box. Three Lutece Infusions later, and we were off again, following signs that pointed the way to Chen Lin.

"So," asked Elizabeth, "who in the Vox Populi did you make this deal with?"

"The top dog herself, Daisy Fitzroy."

Elizabeth looked impressed. "She's either a great hero or the worst of scoundrels, depending on who's doing the telling."

"Hey, if she'll give us the airship, she could be the queen of Holland for all I care."

We made our way in further, but got sidetracked when Elizabeth began to pick the lock to a door. For the first time since I'd learned that she could do that, I regretted her picking the lock. As soon as the door opened, we were ambushed by a Motorized Patriot and a squad of soldiers. Hooray for my upgrades; my larger clip let me mow down the soldiers without missing a beat. I charged down a flight of stairs, narrowly missing getting shot by the Patriot. I set it on fire with my Devil's Kiss, then zapped it a couple of times with my Shock Jockey. To finish it off, I ran up to it and put a half-dozen shotgun shells into it.

I hate Motorized Patriots; it's just all kinds of wrong to see George Washington trying to kill me. Now, Teddy Roosevelt I could see trying to kill me; I don't know, I guess I could see him saying something about a big stick while shooting that crank gun.

Since no one else was around, Elizabeth and I began to unashamedly loot the place. We found money, Salts, plenty of ammo, and another trio of Lutece Infusions. More importantly, we found a couple of lunchboxes filled with food. Neither of us had eaten in a long time, and we were both starving.

After we ate, we made our way to the elevator that would take us to Finkton. As we waited, Elizabeth began rummaging around some lockers, one of which happened to belong to Slate of all people. She pulled out a book and began to read, but stopped and gasped.

"What is it?" I asked; it was probably something to make me hate someone else in this city.

"This diary belonged to my mother... I mean, Lady Comstock, and it was inside of Slate's locker." No kidding? Maybe Slate found something good inside; celebrity gossip, maybe?

Elizabeth began to read aloud. "My husband claims that the child was created from whole cloth by divine will. I am a believer, but I am not a fool; his…" Elizabeth choked for a moment, her eyes almost glowing in anger, "… bastard shall not be raised under this roof." Elizabeth looked at me. "I think that she was the one who had me put in that tower."

Hey, I was right; it _did _make me hate someone else in this city.

"Maybe," I said, "but I think that both Comstock and his wife wanted you in that tower, but for different reasons. At least Lady Comstock wasn't an idiot; she knew that she couldn't have given birth in a week. Plus, I think that she'd remember going through childbirth."

Elizabeth's face grew dark. "Can we _please _just get out of this city?"

As if in response, the elevator arrived, and we both got inside. We started to move down, but didn't get very far when the elevator jerked to a stop.

"Aw, crap," I moaned, "not again."

Elizabeth was going to respond, when the telephone inside began to ring; for some reason, I found that immensely creepy. We both looked at it, then each other. I slowly reached out and picked it up.

"Um, hello?"

"Mr. DeWitt?" came a female voice.

"Uh, yes?" I looked at Elizabeth, who was leaning in so she could hear; she looked as confused as I felt.

"Hold for Mr. Fink, please."

"What's going on?" whispered Elizabeth. Before I could answer, a new voice came through the phone.

"DeWitt? Fink here. Listen, my boy, we've had our eye on you, and let me tell you, you are our top candidate! Top!" I glanced at Elizabeth, who shrugged at me. "Now, my associate, Mr. Flambeau, will help you with anything you need, ha ha!" Then Fink hung up.

"What the hell was that?" asked Elizabeth.

"Beats me," I said, "but something tells me that we may be walking into a trap."

Elizabeth looked worried. "So, what do we do?"

I smiled. "To quote a great Jedi, we spring the trap."

"What's a Jedi?"

"Future reference; I'll tell you later."

The elevator began to descend again, and I saw something that almost made my jaw dislocate from dropping so fast. A massive statue, probably fifty feet tall, made of solid gold, and shaped in what I assumed was the likeness of Jeremiah Fink. What the hell. This guy had a fifty-foot, solid gold statue of himself, in his own factory. That's… wow, I don't even….

I was so distracted by staring at the biggest monument to self-worship that I've ever seen that I didn't realize that the elevator had stopped until Elizabeth poked me.

"Sorry," I said, "it's just that…" I waved in the direction of the statue.

"I understand," she said, "but the sooner we finish up here, the sooner we can get away from… _that_."

"Agreed, let's get this over with."

We stepped out of the elevator to see a very butler-esque guy standing in front of a set of doors. Probably this Flambeau guy that Fink told us about.

"Mr. DeWitt," the guy said, "thank you for coming. Mr. Fink has generously offered these gifts, as a token of good will." He gestured to a small case on top of a table.

Cautiously, keeping my shotgun aimed in the guy's general direction, I cracked open the case. Inside was a bag full of silver eagles, and… whoa.

That was the biggest handgun that I'd ever seen! I mean, I'd heard the term "hand cannon" before, but this pistol looked like it could fire shotgun-shell-sized bullets! On closer inspection, it held only six bullets before needing to be reloaded but, in my opinion, if anything was able to take six shots from this beast, I'd be better off running. Ooh, and on top of that, it came with a shoulder holster and extra bullets!

Grinning like a lunatic, I slid on the holster, adjusting it to fit me better. I loaded the hand cannon, twirled it like a cowboy, then slid it into the holster. As I was doing that, Elizabeth turned to Flambeau.

"What does Fink want with us?"

Huh; that was probably something that I should have asked sooner.

"I'm sorry, miss," Flambeau said, "but Mr. Fink's business is strictly with the gentleman."

"What gentleman?" I turned, looking around the room. "The only people here are a snooty butler, a lady, and a puckish rogue. And I'm not the snooty butler."

Flambeau looked confused, while Elizabeth seemed amused by my antics. While the snooty butler in question was still mulling over my comment, Elizabeth and I pushed past him and into a courtyard-like place.

"You're a puckish rogue now?" Elizabeth asked as we stepped out.

"Hey, you're the one who called me a roguish type first, remember?"

The two of us shared a quick laugh.

Of course, it was right around then that the universe remembered that it wanted me dead, because an impact sent me flying through the air and into a pillar. I struggled to get up, then I saw what sent me on a very short trip.

A Handyman; actually, not just any Handyman…

"Hey! You're that fucker that threw me over the ledge before!"

"_The Prophet declares that you must die,"_ the Handyman said as he stomped towards me, giant hands raised.

Well, Booker DeWitt declares that you are an asshole.

"Elizabeth, run!" Elizabeth skirted around the ugly bastard and took cover, while I ran in the other direction.

"Where's the boss music?" I muttered, even as I pulled out my machine gun, "There should always be boss music for guys like this."

I fired an entire clip into the Handyman, and all those bullets did a grand total of nothing; if they did do some damage, I didn't see it. Okay, time for the heavier stuff. I pulled out all of my Vigors on the son of a bitch; I sent lightning bolts, fireballs and flocks of crows at him. I tried using a Bucking Bronco, but he was too heavy to lift, and every time I threw a Possession at him, he jumped over it. Seriously, this guy's jumping skills would have made Mario proud.

Even after everything I hit him with, the sucker wouldn't go down, and I was getting tired of running around; every time I stood still to throw a Vigor or shoot my gun, the Handyman would leap into the air and smash the area that I'd been standing on, forcing me to dash out of the way.

Honestly, I'd have been annoyed if I wasn't terrified.

I raised my machine gun again and pulled the trigger, when I heard a clicking sound; I needed to reload. I reached for another clip, but there wasn't anything there; I was out of ammo! I dropped the machine gun and reached for my shotgun, but the Handyman jumped in front of me and backhanded me into a wall.

Ow. No, seriously, that was painful; my shields were gone, and I was pretty sure that my entire torso was one giant bruise. If it hadn't been for my shield slowing down the blow, my ribcage would probably be powder. As it was, I was still trying to get back up when the Handyman stomped over to me, hands raised to finish the job.

There was no way out; I closed my eyes, waiting for the end…

"Get away from him!"

My eyes snapped open, and both I and the Handyman turned (well, I just leaned around the Handyman, since I was on the floor) to see Elizabeth aiming a rocket launcher.

Wait, where did she get that?

I guess the Handyman was confused too, because he just stared at her blankly, which gave her plenty of time to send a rocket right into the bastard's chest. I thought that it was over, but the Handyman started to stomp his way towards Elizabeth, even as a chunk of armor over his chest fell to the ground with a clank.

"Elizabeth!" Shouting was really hard; it would be the same for you too, if you'd been punched by Franken-bot here.

The Handyman turned back to me; I guess he'd remembered his original job of murdering me. Then I noticed something weird; the center of his chest, now exposed thanks to Elizabeth's rocket, had a glowing container with what looked like a heart on the inside.

Well, if Dead Space has taught me anything, it's to shoot the glowing bits! I pulled out my new hand cannon and pulled the trigger; the close-range shot tore the fucker's heart out, exploding out the back. The Handyman swayed on his feet for a second, before collapsing with a thud. I limped over the corpse and poked it to make sure that it was dead.

"Take that, you ugly, steampunk motherfucker!" I kicked the body for good measure, only to get a stubbed toe; totally worth it.

And then I fell over, exhausted.

Elizabeth ran up to me and helped me get to a sitting position, while I rubbed my sore chest. While I was resting, Elizabeth went searching for supplies and came back a few minutes later with a whole lot of stuff, including my fallen guns. She had silver eagles, some Salts, ammo for all of my guns and, most importantly, another trio of Lutece Infusions. After I drank the red one, immediately making me feel better, I smiled up at Elizabeth.

"You're a godsend, you know that?"

It was a pleasant surprise to see Elizabeth's face turn bright red as she sat next to me. Note to self: try to get Elizabeth to blush more, it's really cute.

"I don't know about that, Booker, I just wanted to help."

I laughed. "Elizabeth, most people would 'help' by throwing a rock or just getting his attention; you, on the other hand, shot him with a friggin' rocket launcher!" As Elizabeth's face grew redder, I added, "Nice shot, by the way."

Then her smile disappeared, and she looked down.

"You okay?" I asked.

She shook her head. "I didn't want to shoot; I detest violence, but I… I didn't want anything to happen to you, either."

"Hey, it's okay; you didn't actually kill him, _I_ did." I gave my best arrogant smile. "Besides, I'd have gotten him eventually."

"What?" Elizabeth looked at me like I was insane. "You were on your back; you were barely conscious!"

I got up and began to walk away, then called out over my shoulder, "Maybe that's what I _wanted _him to think!"

"You are an arrogant man, Booker," Elizabeth said as she caught up with me, "and I do not know how I can stand you."

"I have a reply to both of those," I told her, "and it's because I'm so damn awesome!"

Ah, there's nothing like making yourself look like an ass to make someone else forget their guilt for being an accessory to murder.

I think at that point Elizabeth realized I was just messing around, because she just rolled her eyes at me again (she was getting really good at that) with a half-smile on her face.

We spent a few minutes meandering through an open part of the factory and, to be honest, I hated it. The entire area seemed to be one giant boost to Fink's ego, with his portraits of himself lining the outside of buildings, and his own quotes underneath them. Narcissus would have been proud.

Though Fink's face was really familiar… wait a second. I recognize that twirly mustache; it was the bastard from the raffle! He had the cops try to kill me! This might not end well; probably because I would end up shooting him in the face with the same gun he'd given me.

What can I say, I appreciate poetic justice.

Finally, we found a building marked "Gunsmith". Now we were getting somewhere!

With hopeful smiles on our faces, we rushed inside, but it wasn't, well, what I was expecting. Now, I've never been in a gunsmith's place before, but I expected, I don't know, the sound of guns being made. Instead, there was just an eerie silence.

I motioned for Elizabeth to stay behind me, while I drew my shotgun. As we moved inside, I finally heard a noise, but it wasn't a positive one; it was a quiet sobbing sound.

I've played enough video games to know that if someone is sobbing, it means that either my job is about to get harder, or I'm about to startle the Witch. The two of us moved up slowly, half-expecting either a squad of soldiers or a dead body.

To my surprise, we found neither. We found an Asian woman standing in front of an altar to Buddha, tears flowing down her cheeks as she prayed.

"Excuse me, ma'am," I said, "We're looking for a Mr. Lin?" the woman didn't reply, so I tried again. "Is there a Chen Lin here?"

Finally, the woman turned around to face me. "Chen Lin no here," she said in broken English, "flying squad take husband away." Oh, she was Chen Lin's wife; now I know.

She started to cry again, but I was concerned; if Chen Lin was gone, how the actual fuck were we going to get the guns to the Vox and get out of here? Oh, yeah, and Chen Lin might be in trouble, so we should probably save him.

While my semi-skewed morals were running through my mind, Elizabeth gently placed her hand on Mrs. Lin's shoulder. "We'll do all we can to save Chen Lin, but we need you to tell us where he is."

Mrs. Lin took a deep breath, then spoke. "Good-Time Club; squad take all people to Good-Time Club." She seemed done with us, because she turned back to pray. "Why Daisy Fitzroy not help us? Why Vox not help Chen Lin?"

"Come on, Booker," Elizabeth whispered, "I think we need to go."

We exited the gunsmith and walked in silence for a little while, before Elizabeth spoke up again.

"What do you think Mrs. Lin meant by 'flying squad'?"

I shrugged. "Probably some security that rides around in one of those smaller airships."

"Do you think they're Comstock's men?"

"Possibly," I admitted, "but I've noticed that Comstock's troops and the cops wear specific uniforms, while the guys here wear something else; for all I know, Fink has enough money for his own private security, if not his own army."

"And we're going up against that?" Elizabeth looked more resigned than scared, which kind of disturbed me; after all, I was the one killing people, not her.

"We have to," I said, with a little more force than I really should have used, "I can't see any other options right now. We need the airship, the Vox need guns, and the Vox haven't done anything to screw us over, so I don't see a reason why we should pick a fight with them."

Elizabeth thought about it for a moment, then nodded. "And I suppose that we're doing a good thing, saving Chen Lin."

I smiled. "And there's that."

…

After wandering around for a while, we found the Good-Time Club. Pretty badly named, since it looked less like a club and more like a prison. Which, now that I think about it, was probably why they called it that. Like Sing Sing Prison; I kinda thought they'd have musicals in there, but they don't.

There weren't any guards on the outside, but I entered shotgun-first, just to be safe. I was so tense, expecting to be ambushed, that I nearly fired on reflex when an automated messaged was broadcasted over the PA.

"_Welcome, sir or madam, to the Good-Time Club, where lions roar!"_

I turned to Elizabeth, who looked just as startled as I was. "Not what I was expecting."

"What exactly _were _you expecting?"

I shrugged. "I don't know, confetti or an ambush, one of the two."

Elizabeth's no-doubt sarcastic retort was interrupted by another voice over the PA.

"_Ah, DeWitt, my boy!"_ Ah, it was Fink; I'd recognize that slimy salesman voice anywhere. _"You know, the best kind of interview is one where the applicant doesn't even know he's being evaluated, ha ha ha! But I've watched you ever since that day at the lottery; you're a brute! And in times like these, I could use a brute!"_

While Fink was yapping, we made our way further into the club; still, I took some offense to being called a brute. I may have killed dozens of people over the last couple of days, but that doesn't mean that's all I can do; I play the guitar, for crying out loud! Hey, wait a second; why was Fink watching me? That was kind of creepy.

"What do you want, Fink?" I put away my shotgun in favor of my machine gun when we entered an area that looked almost like a big theater.

"_Why, labor unrest is coming, DeWitt," _Fink answered, _"now, Fitzroy has the jungle all riled up. A man like me could have use of a fighter like you."_

Wait, Fink was looking to _hire _me? After all the bullshit he put me through at the raffle? Oh, like hell I was gonna work for that dickhead.

"Let's find Chen Lin and get the hell out of here." Though she didn't say anything, I could see that Elizabeth agreed with me.

We found a flight of stairs leading to the front of the stage, but I couldn't see a way out; fortunately, sort of, Fink started to talk again.

"_Now, now, all I ask is that you finish what you started, DeWitt!" _Fink's tone turned menacing. _"We wouldn't want to disappoint the other applicants!"_

Other applicants? Oh, this can't be good.

"_Our first candidate is a veteran of Peking; now, what's that they say about old soldiers?"_ Fink laughed, then continued. _"Frankly, my money's on you; now, he's something of an old hand at handling explosives. In fact, he's the only man I know that hasn't lost a limb working with them… yet."_

With that, the curtain on the stage opened, and a Fireman, along with a dozen soldiers, rushed out, firing weapons or throwing firebombs. Well, two can play at that game; I hurled a few of my own fiery attacks, taking out a few soldiers while Elizabeth took cover behind a pillar. Bullets whizzed all around me, only a few striking my shield.

I should add something here; at this point, my shield was incredibly strong, thanks to all the Infusions I'd found. Yesterday, a dozen rounds might have shattered my shield; now, however, I could take a rocket to the face and just walk it off. It didn't hurt that most of my enemies made Stormtroopers like marksmen.

That being said, I totally owned those guys. In less than a minute, I'd taken down all of the soldiers; the Fireman proved to be a bit of a challenge, but one application of Bucking Bronco turned him into the world's spiciest piñata. And my hand cannon turned out to be the perfect tool to break him open; I wouldn't advise eating any of the candy that came out, though.

"_Oh-ho-ho, good show, quality work!" _Oh, yeah; I forgot that that douche Fink was still watching.

While I took a moment to catch my breath, Elizabeth darted out and collected some ammo and Salts for me to use. She quickly took cover again when Fink's voice came back over the PA, and a box rose up out of the stage.

"_Now, this young go-getter is a former devotee of Lady Comstock; but, without the old gal, they don't know quite what to do with themselves."_

Okay, I didn't know that Lady Comstock had devotees; though I suppose that a prophet's wife would be almost as popular as the prophet himself. Oh, and that box opened up to reveal one of those crow-guys, just like the one I fought before. Great, because I loved it the first time. And, sadly, he wasn't alone; another dozen guys joined him, though they looked more like thugs than soldiers. Oh well, maybe that meant that I would have an easier fight.

Turns out, I was right; the soldiers from before had worn some protective clothing, but these poor bastards had nothing but pistols, clubs and the clothes on their backs. It only took a few bullets to put one of them down, and soon, all that was left was the crow-guy. He was a bit of a challenge, more so than the Fireman due to his teleporting around but, in the end, everyone stops when you shoot them in the head, point-blank, with a shotgun.

As Elizabeth gathered up more ammo and salts again, I heard Fink open his big yap again; God, why wouldn't he just shut the fuck up?

"_Now, enough of the opening acts." _Oh shit, that was just the warm-up? I mean, yeah, it wasn't that hard, but still… _"Your true rival is an expert with the automata; he wants to replace all our security with machines! I'll give the old boy credit, though; it would be fewer mouths to feed!"_

… I hate this guy so much.

The curtain opened one more time, to reveal some skinny dude, a handful of guys, and not one, but _two _Motorized Patriots. Oh, fuck my life.

I threw a Possession at one of the guys, hoping to cause a little chaos while I came up with something resembling a plan, but I missed. Instead of the random guy, my Possession hit one of the Patriots, who promptly turned around and gunned down the skinny guy and all of the other poor bastards.

I didn't know that I could Possess a Patriot, and I feel like an idiot for never even trying before. Still, better late than never, since "my" Patriot began to shoot the crap out of the other one. That one, in turn, realized that it was being attacked and returned fire. Elizabeth and I watched as the two robots whittled each other down, before the Possession wore off; I opened up on the most damaged first, destroying it with a few well-placed lightning bolts. The other one followed a couple minutes later.

I was feeling pretty good about myself as I stood over the smoking wreckage, but Fink just had to go and ruin the moment by talking… again.

"_Congratulations, DeWitt!" _Fink seemed pleased with himself, as if he was the one who'd been fighting for his life. _"You know, when your name was passed down to me, I wasn't quite sure that you were the one for the job; but now I can say with certainty that I was quite wrong!"_

I was fed up with this guy. "You can take your offer and shove it, Fink!"

"_Now, now, I know all about your little job for Fitzroy; but do you really want to take her offer over mine?"_

"He said he wasn't interested," Elizabeth shouted as she and I looked for a way out of here, "and neither am I, for that matter!"

"_Oh, come now," _Fink said, ignoring Elizabeth, _"do you know how many people would kill to be head of Fink Security? Oh, you're a tough nut to crack, Mr. DeWitt, a tough nut! But you should know," _now his voice was downright threatening, _"I always get what I want."_

Finally, after a few more minutes of searching, we found a door that lead deeper into the actual prison part of the building. I never thought that I'd ever try breaking into a prison, but then again, I never thought I'd be fighting for my life on a floating city in the sky, either.

As we made our way down a flight of stairs, I began to smell something disgusting. It took me a little while, but I was able to sort through the various odors; it was a combination of blood, rotting meat, and human waste. I remembered the smell from when we found so many of Slate's men dead. Honestly, not the most pleasant smells. I heard a choking noise and turned to see Elizabeth gagging.

"Are you okay?" I asked, concerned; I guess her nose is more sensitive than mine.

"I'm… I'm all right, Booker," she said, though she looked pale, "it's just that the smell…"

"Yeah," I agreed, "it's pretty bad; do you want to wait here, while I look for Chen Lin?"

She shook her head. "No, Booker, I want to finish this with you; besides, I need to keep an eye on you, so that you don't almost die again."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, come on, that's only happened, like, twice."

"Which is two times too many." Then she gave me a genuine smile. "But thank you for caring."

"No problem," I said, happy that I'd been able to make her feel better, "now come on; we've got a gunsmith to rescue."

In the cramped hallways, I was glad that I had my hand cannon; my shotgun was too unwieldy. We only walked for a few seconds before we froze at the sound of voices; fortunately, it wasn't Fink's voice.

"Come on, Frannie," said a male voice, "you're a modern woman; it's nineteen-twelve!"

An annoyed female voice answered him. "It's gonna be _two thousand_-twelve before I'm interested in a man like you!"

I stifled a laugh at the irony, even as I turned the corner to see the speakers, a pair of guards. They froze in shock, which was weird; didn't they hear the sound of gunfire, explosions and death from upstairs? Still, their hesitation was the death of them, literally, thanks to my hand cannon; two shots, two corpses.

We searched the next room, which actually told us that Chen Lin was in cell number one. Hooray for us. We hurried down to the next floor, while I barely paused to slice another guard's throat open with my Skyhook, then shot his buddy with my pistol.

Along the way, Fink tried one more time to sway us, or rather, me.

"_DeWitt, you're a lion; but you can't blame me for looking out for my own interests, can you?"_

"I can blame you for a whole lot, you bastard!" I shouted, even though I had no idea if Fink could hear me, because he continued as if I hadn't spoken.

"_Now, I know Fitzroy has come calling, but I think you'll find your business with her has… come to an end."_

Elizabeth and I shared worried looks. That couldn't be good.

It took some work to find Chen Lin's cell; between the guards, and trying not to throw up as the smell got stronger, what should have taken five minutes turned into an ungodly long slog. Finally, we reached the cell; the door was locked, but thankfully, Elizabeth was able to pick it open.

"Chen Lin?" I called out, but no one answered. The lights flickered, preventing us from seeing the details of the person sitting on the chair; he wasn't moving, which meant that he was either unconscious or… dead.

"Chen Lin?" asked Elizabeth, as she reached the figure in front of us. She reached out for his shoulder, and I got a really bad feeling.

"Elizabeth…" I tried to warn her, but it was too late.

The chair spun around; the man was barely recognizable as a human being. His face was shredded and bashed, and it looked like every bone in his body was broken.

I got a glimpse of Elizabeth's face; it was close to total despair, and I felt pretty similar. After all, Chen Lin was dead; we'd failed.

What were we going to do now?

**Wow, it's been a while, huh? It's been almost two months since I've updated this story, and I apologize for that. I will try to update this story more frequently, but between my Ben 10 story, which is my main story, and college, which is my main focus right now, I just haven't had the time. Still, I plan to finish this story up by the end of the year.**

**Now that that's out of the way, I've put up a poll, asking what you, the readers, would like me to write next. While I can't say that the winner will actually be the story I write, I do want your opinion. So go ahead, start voting!**

**This is your muffin, should you choose to accept it…**


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